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Oz Pearlman (2025) - Mind Reading and Ultra Endurance · The Joe Rogan Recap

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  Welcome to the Joe Rogan recap. Hey there.
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  Today we're doing a bit of a different kind of deep dive.
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  We're pulling insights from a really fascinating Joe Rogan
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  Experience conversation with Oz Perlman.
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  Yeah, the mentalist and maybe less known, the ultra endurance
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  athlete. Quite the combo.
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  Exactly. And our mission here isn't just
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  to summarize. We want to, you know, distill
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  the core lessons. Find those hidden connections
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  between pushing your body to the absolute limit and, well,
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  seemingly reading minds. And how that all translates into
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  real world stuff like understanding people better,
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  shaping how things are perceived, creating moments that
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  actually stick with people. Right, we're looking at that
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  overlap, extreme endurance, the art of mentalism, and practical
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  skills for just navigating life and perception.
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  It's like mental and physical cross training almost, how
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  digging deep in one area informs the other, peeling back layers,
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  whether it's exhaustion and erase or thoughts in someone's
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  head. OK, let's jump into it.
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  First up, the physical side, which turns out to be maybe not
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  just physical, we're talking ultra endurance.
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  Oz tackled the Spart Athlon. Which is just brutal.
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  For anyone who doesn't know, that's what, 153 miles Athens to
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  Sparta. Yeah, 153 miles and you only got
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  36 hours. You have to keep moving,
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  running, walking fast, rugged terrain through the night.
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  It's immense and. His first try didn't go so well,
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  no. He got about halfway 75 miles
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  and just quit at an aid station. Said he was puking for like 8
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  hours straight. Awful, but.
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  Here's the key thing, he stressed.
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  He feels like the physical part, the puking, wasn't the actual
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  reason he stopped. Right, he said he wasn't
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  mentally tough enough that year. He basically gave up in his head
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  way before his body truly failed him.
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  Like writing the DNF speech mentally.
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  And then there's that incredible story from the race middle.
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  He's struggling and this other runner comes by.
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  Oh yeah, this guy looked completely wrecked, maybe even
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  hallucinating a bit, but he looks at Oz and just says this
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  line. You're going to give up if you
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  can't run, you walk, can't walk, you crawl.
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  You never ever just raw. That stuck with him, haunted
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  him, he said. Totally fueled him.
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  He went back the next year and this time he finished, but his
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  mindset was completely different.
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  He went in and this is intense, saying I'm going to finish this
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  race ready to die. He accepted the pain was coming.
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  And that experience just hammered home for him how mental
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  these extreme races are. He saw, you know, slower
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  runners, older runners finish that first year when he, the
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  physically strong guy, quit. So it wasn't just about the legs
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  and lungs. Beyond a certain point, it's the
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  mind that's the decider. Absolutely.
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  Mental fortitude becomes primary.
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  OK, so most of us aren't running 153 miles, right?
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  What's the take away for, you know, normal life?
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  Oz connects it directly, pushing yourself physically, even if
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  it's just a tough workout you really don't want to do.
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  It tests you when you're low mentally physical.
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  It's in those moments of like voluntary suffering, wanting to
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  quit but not, that's where you build resilience.
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  Exactly. You learn what you're capable
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  of. And the payoff, he argues, is
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  that everyday stress starts to feel less intense.
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  He said the volume is turned down on regular life stress,
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  which makes sense. If you've handled that, then a
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  tough day at work feels more manageable.
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  Your baseline for hard shifts. Plus he really emphasizes
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  exercise for mental health too. It's statistically proven
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  against anxiety, depression, sometimes more effective than
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  meds. He frames it almost like a
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  mandatory thing we're missing in our sedentary lives.
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  Doesn't have to be extreme running though.
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  Find something you enjoy, right? Yeah, Pickleball, jiu jitsu,
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  dancing, whatever. Just move consistently.
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  Experience that beneficial discomfort.
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  OK, let's pivot from the body to the mind.
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  Or maybe the perception of mind. Mentalism.
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  How did he even get into that? It wasn't some mystical calling.
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  It was practical. He started doing magic at 17 to
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  pay for college working restaurants.
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  Which sounds like trial by fire walking up to tables of
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  strangers. Total strangers, people who
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  might be annoyed or skeptical, and you have to win them over
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  fast, he said. It's it's exactly like sales,
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  high stakes sales. And he's really clear on this
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  point. He doesn't claim to read minds.
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  No, not in the psychic way. He says.
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  He reads people. He learned from books, videos,
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  observation. But he stresses mentalism is way
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  harder to learn than, say, card tricks.
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  How so? Well, a magic trick like sleight
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  of hand, you can practice it alone until it's perfect.
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  It works mechanically. Mentalism depends on psychology,
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  interaction, reading cues. You can't just practice in front
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  of a mirror. Nope, you have to perform for
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  real people and you will fail. It's very blunt.
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  It says you have to eat shit. Basically bombing, getting it
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  wrong, misreading things. That's how you learn.
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  There's no other way. So the skill is like reverse
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  engineering how people think. Yeah, understanding common
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  thought patterns, being incredibly observant, using
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  psychological principles, misdirection, and what he calls
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  algorithms. Not code, but predictable
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  sequences in thinking and behavior.
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  Using this whole toolbox to create the impression of mind
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  reading. Right.
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  He compared it to Jason Bourne and The Bourne Identity.
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  That hyper awareness, noticing tiny details, body language
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  shifts, things most people just filter out.
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  But for Oz, it's a learned skill, honed by all that
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  practice and failure. OK, so reading people leads into
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  this next fascinating bit. How memory works?
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  Or maybe how it doesn't work like we think?
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  Yeah, this is huge. His point is, memory isn't a
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  perfect recording. It's malleable.
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  You can rework it, even engineer it.
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  He uses his card to ceiling trick as the prime example.
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  Right sign card back in the deck, shuffle.
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  He throws the deck at the ceiling and only the signed card
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  sticks. Great trick.
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  Visually impossible, yeah, but the real trick was what happened
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  later. Exactly, he noticed people
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  telling the story would consistently leave out the part
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  where he threw the deck. Oh wow, so they'd just say.
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  I picked a card, it went in the deck and then boom my signed
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  card was just stuck in the ceiling.
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  They edited their own memory. Turning a clever trick into like
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  a miracle in their mind. Precisely.
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  And he saw this happening early on around 15, and realized this
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  is a life hack. How do you get people to
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  remember what you want them to remember and forget the rap?
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  Powerful, and it applies way beyond magic tricks.
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  Totally. It's about shaping perception,
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  controlling the narrative, whether it's an event, a pitch,
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  or just highlighting your own strengths.
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  He talked about designing everything with an end insight,
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  focusing on the story people will tell afterwards.
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  That Joe Burrow prediction he did that wasn't spontaneous.
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  He spent two years thinking about that outcome, how to
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  structure it so the final reveal would be incredibly memorable
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  and seem impossible. He was engineering the memory of
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  that interaction. Absolutely, and he does this all
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  the time, adapting his stuff for different audiences.
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  ESPN gets football examples, CNBC gets finance talk.
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  Corporate gigs get company references.
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  Makes it relevant. Get some leaning in.
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  And lets him sneak in the medicine as he calls it the key
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  message. The feeling the take away he
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  wants them to have makes it stick.
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  This deep understanding of perception and psychology, it
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  also makes him naturally skeptical, right?
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  Oh definitely, he's quick to call out BS, especially claims
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  of supernatural stuff. Like those telepathy videos you
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  sometimes see? Yeah, he explains that away as
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  almost always being micro communication, tiny signals,
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  learned rhythms between people, often unconscious, not psychic
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  connection. And he points out, if it were
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  real telepathy, it should work under controlled double-blind
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  conditions. Conditions which surprise
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  surprise, these folks usually refuse because it would block
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  those subtle cues. He connects it to older psychics
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  too, using similar techniques like cold reading, right?
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  Fishing for info, reading reactions, making it seem
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  intuitive. Same playbook, different era.
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  He also dismisses things like spoon bending as just good
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  misdirection, not heating metal with your hand.
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  So his skills aren't magic powers, they're deep applied
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  understanding of human psychology and perception.
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  Exactly like a casino boss, he says, knows all the cheating
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  methods. Not because he cheats, but
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  because he studied the game inside and out, recognizing
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  patterns, influencing focus. It's applied human behavior at a
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  master level. Let's bring mindset back in
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  gratitude. Growth.
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  These seem woven through everything he talks about.
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  They really are. He mentions using anger as fuel
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  like in that second Spart Athlon attempt, but also transforming
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  negative stuff like jealousy. Instead of just feeling bad or
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  resentful. Which he calls a dull brain
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  state. Not useful.
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  Turn it into inspiration. See someone doing well, ask, OK,
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  what can I learn? How did they get there?
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  How can I use that drive? Fuel your own ambition.
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  He also shared that advice from Jay Shetty about controlling the
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  first and last thought of the day.
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  Yeah. You can't control every random
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  thought, but you can intentionally focus on gratitude
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  when you wake up and before you sleep.
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  And that actually changes things.
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  He sees it as actively changing your reality, your perspective,
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  focusing on what you have every day alive is a blessing, Builds
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  resilience, contentment. It's a mental muscle.
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  And growth requires challenge, right?
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  Avoiding comfort zones. Definitely.
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  He used the example of comedians needing to test new stuff at
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  tough clubs like the mothership, not just playing to guaranteed
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  laughs from fans. Getting soft happens when you
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  avoid situations where you might fail.
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  Exactly that risk, that discomfort, whether you're an
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  athlete, comedian or just learning something new, that's
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  where the growth is. They also mentioned helping
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  others, paying it forward. The selfishly selfless idea.
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  Right. It feels good, builds community,
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  helps you appreciate others instead of, you know, secretly
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  hoping they fail. Which he admitted doing early in
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  his comedy days before learning better.
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  OK, let's talk about the actual reviews he did during the JRE
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  conversation. These really demonstrated all
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  these principles in action. Yeah, they.
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  Weren't just random tricks. First was the corn flip
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  prediction. Remember the sealed envelope?
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  Yeah, it was there the whole time.
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  Joe kept getting the flips wrong, got insistent.
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  And the envelope predicted exactly that.
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  Miss 3. Insist Miss the next two.
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  So that's not predicting random coin flips, it's predicting
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  Joe's reaction to perceived randomness.
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  Exactly. Reading behavior, ego
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  involvement, how people double down.
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  It's reading the person plus probability.
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  Then the fighter prediction. Joe cycles through what, 14
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  names in his head? Something like that and lands on
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  Anderson Silva, which the envelope predicted even with a
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  fight detail. OK, how does that work?
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  Influence priming. Likely a mix, subtly guiding
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  thought, knowing recent exposures, leveraging common
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  associations, making the predicted choice feel
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  spontaneous to Joe, but actually making it the most probable
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  outcome in that context, influencing perceived
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  spontaneity and the. 3rd 1 Based on the photo, Joe thought
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  Muhammad Ali first, then Miles Davis.
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  And the prediction was Ali. This shows understanding thought
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  hierarchies. The mind often goes to the icon,
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  the ideal Ali first, before maybe settling on the more
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  literal answer related to the prompt.
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  Davis so. He's predicting that initial top
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  of mind. Thought or layering
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  possibilities, Knowing the mind visits certain common landmarks
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  first. Again, it's crucial.
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  None of this is psychic. It's highly skilled application
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  of reading people influence, understanding thought processes.
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  To create these past, present and future moments that feel
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  impossible engineering and experience.
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  Exactly so. Pulling this all together,
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  what's the really applicable wisdom here for you listening?
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  Well, he mentions these same skills directly, helping
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  practical stuff like negotiation.
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  Says he's never sold a property at a loss because of it.
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  Reading the other side, understanding the dynamics.
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  And just the drive to create, to practice.
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  Even mentalist don't have open mics, right?
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  He rehearses complex routines just in his head, Constant
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  innovation. But maybe the biggest trick in
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  life, as he put it. Is just focusing intently on
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  other people, being genuinely curious, listening, actively
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  holding the mirror up to them. Like meeting Steven Spielberg,
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  he said. Let the other person shine.
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  It builds connection. You learn more.
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  It's fundamental to reading people, not just for show but
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  for real connection, making it about you, the other person.
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  So these insights from ultramarathons and mentalism,
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  they really do offer tools for everyday life.
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  Absolutely. Resilience, observation skills,
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  shaping perception positively, gratitude, growth mindset, it's
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  all there. We've covered a lot mindset from
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  extreme challenges, the skills behind reading people shaping
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  memorial, critical thinking, gratitude.
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  The connections are definitely there if you look.
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  So here's a final thought for you to take away.
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  How can you consciously apply some of this?
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  Can you shift jealousy to inspiration?
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  What subtle cues are you missing every day on autopilot?
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  And what might happen if you started actively looking for
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  them? Observing.
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  With that focused curiosity, Oz demonstrates the potential
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  insights are all around you. Thank you for joining us for
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  this deep dive.