Latest / The Magic Guys / Eric Yuhasz on Cultivating Creativity! #289

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Eric Yuhasz on Cultivating Creativity! #289 · The Magic Guys

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  They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
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  Ladies and gentlemen, welcome to episode 289 of the Magic Guys.
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  To my left, we've got Nick K. Hi,
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  I'm Nick K.
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  Just a little weird asmr to start your morning we hope you're doing well or
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  evening wherever you might be we don't we don't judge if you're a nighttime viewer all good,
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  thank you for watching viewing and subscribing and liking and sharing and discording and youtubing,
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  Nick, did you just change mugs? I saw you hold up the Magic Guys mug,
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  but I swear to God, now I've got a Nick K mug.
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  I just finished this one and I had a backup one. Okay, okay.
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  My other Christmas edition of the Magic Guys mug is in the dishwasher,
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  so I wasn't able to play. You can get your very own Magic Guy mug from magicguyshows.com.
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  It helps support the pod and helps us buy razor blades to stay bold.
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  Josh, it's been a week. How you been?
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  Dude, I have been good enjoying our episodes lately, man. It's been very fun.
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  Watching you hold up two different mugs just reminded me of like I've been having
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  to do it with lots of events coming up.
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  I've been having to do a lot of like client brief Zoom calls where you talk
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  about their event coming up.
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  Normally because like you're emceeing the event or you're doing a show rather
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  than roving where we can just turn up and it doesn't matter yeah anyway and
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  i thought i would have some fun and put like a bit of a magic show on for this one client,
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  and i basically did a,
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  t-shirt color change,
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  throughout their call kind of like,
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  what's his name who i'm trying to think of Kelly Morelli,
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  well yeah it's not his effect but but you know the pickpocketing guy on YouTube
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  that has that great TED talk where he changes his shirt but it's not a visual
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  change it's a psychological change everyone listening to this is shouting the name of him.
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  Anyway, it doesn't matter. Which you can put in the comments,
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  by the way. This is done live and we do have a comment section.
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  If you know who the hell Josh is talking about, you can do that. People like...
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  Apollo Robbins. Apollo Robbins? Apollo Robbins, one of the greatest magic TED Talks I've seen.
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  Anyway, blew the client's mind. So basically, it was started.
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  I was like, hey, before we start, can I show you a trick? And I held up a card
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  and got them to take a photo of my screen.
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  And then throughout the routine throughout the meeting,
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  i changed the shirt no one noticed obviously and then at the end i'm like hey
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  let me let me just do one more thing take a photo of me again and i was like
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  sometimes magic happens without us even realizing it so when i get off the call
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  have a look at both photos and then,
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  left the meeting and then i got an email from them saying holy f how did you
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  change your shirt you know,
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  little details anyway you say how's your head like just as like a real stupid
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  like you there's a hole there's three holes two are for the arms one for the
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  head that's how you change your clothes yeah question lots of love josh,
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  and for everyone who is going to message me about it it was the um jackie you,
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  version of that effect which you guys can scope out and find but i've never
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  had a use for it until now realizing it's perfect for zoom shows,
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  so that that's uh That was one little highlight amongst, you know, this week is, I.
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  Have two different flights this week and then two events on the week.
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  Times are getting crazy, which is good for us.
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  How about you, Nick? How are you doing? Yeah, it's been a very fun,
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  exciting week with really lovely people I've been performing for.
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  The most exciting part of my week is happening right now. Today's guest. Let's get into it.
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  Yeah, let's do it. Who have we got coming on? Friends, today's guest.
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  Well, today's guest is no stranger to the Magic Guy show. Eric Uhouse is a magician,
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  educator, author, and apparently a guy who cannot,
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  stop asking magicians questions because his last book, Practice Playbook,
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  explored how magicians practice and rehearse.
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  And we actually managed to sneak ourselves into that little bit of printed media,
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  which is an amazing read. We've talked about it a whole bunch on the pod and in our book club.
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  But this time he's back with cultivating creativity.
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  And it's how magicians build bold, impactful ideas, where he picks the brains
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  of some of the most creative people to find out where great ideas come from.
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  And so, no strings to the pod, back to visit us all again. Please join us by
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  welcoming back Mr. Eric Uhaus.
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  Thank you all. Thank you. I appreciate it. I'm excited to be back.
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  Thanks for having me back. Buddy, welcome back to the Magic Guys podcast.
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  Tell everyone, who are you? What do you do?
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  I think you covered a lot of that already. But my name is Eric Youhouse.
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  I'm based out of Florida, which is the United States of America,
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  because I know this goes out to the world.
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  I am a teacher, speaker, author, husband, and magician.
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  And that's what kind of brings me here tonight, because I get to talk about
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  my new project that I've been working on and that's out in the world.
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  Yeah. So last time we were talking about a book on practice,
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  but what is it? Why was the creativity, the next rabbit hole you wanted to disappear down? Yeah.
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  Creativity actually was the first rabbit hole I wanted to go down.
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  This is the interesting side of it because I always had this idea.
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  I would love to interview people in the magic community who are just super creative
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  because there are so many people, but I felt like I wouldn't have access to these individuals.
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  So that's where I started off with the practice playbook. I'm like,
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  you know what? Let me just get a name in the community.
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  And once I have that, then I'll be able to connect with the people who I wanted
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  to speak to for the creativity book.
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  So what happened was the practice playbook came together really easily because
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  so many people just said, yes, sure, you can interview me.
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  That's great. They didn't care if they had heard of me or not.
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  And so that came together rather quickly.
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  And I told you all before the podcast started, when I was out pitching this
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  book in 2025 at Magic Live, I already had half of this book written.
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  So I really didn't need the entry into the magic community because there are
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  so many great people who are just willing to share in the magic community.
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  So that's kind of where it started. I was wanting just to focus on the book about creativity.
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  And then the idea of practice came in there.
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  And from that finished the practice book finished up the creativity book so here i am now,
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  yeah did you was it kind of like a two in one situation where when you would
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  meet with magicians you were asking them about things for both books or was
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  they entirely different,
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  completely different and there was i should tell you the the rule the rule that
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  i set for myself was with the creativity book i wasn't going to re-interview
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  someone that i interviewed in the
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  first book that's why i didn't to ask to interview you all because i know
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  there's a ton of creative things that you all dive into when you're just spitballing,
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  and it is really amazing that you all do that and how quickly the ideas just
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  spew out of you all like diarrhea,
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  but it is really creative stuff that you all do but that was my sound effect
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  for that yeah yeah it would probably be a pretty nasty sound effect wait wait
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  i got one i got one i got one okay.
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  There it is. There it is. Ladies and gentlemen. There.
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  That's a guaranteed you're going to win another award next year at FISM.
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  And for being creative and making that fart sound, Matty, thank you.
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  We got a little donation there to go towards maybe buying a book. We'll figure it out.
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  I want paper. We're going to buy toilet paper and wipe up our crappy ideas. Yep.
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  That's the thing. Yeah, you got to throw out the crappy ones to get to the good ones for certain.
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  Yeah, Yeah. You know, you do mention that in the book, but before I ask you
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  that question, well, yeah, let's jump straight into it. This idea of crappy
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  ideas, you open with this great philosophy where you say, give yourself permission to fail. Mm-hmm.
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  Yeah, I think that is one of the hardest things for probably any industry of
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  being okay, being comfortable with failure,
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  whether it be in magic, whether it be if you're a salesperson,
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  whether you're a speaker, a teacher, you work in designing code or clothing,
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  whatever, you've got to get yourself permission to fail and be okay from it.
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  But look at that failure as this is great learning opportunity.
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  And when I did, I used to teach a magic class at my school.
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  And one of the things that I taught them when they would mess up,
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  because it's, you will, I'm like, celebrate that in your mind.
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  Don't let that derail you through your performance because you can celebrate
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  that, reflect over that.
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  And that's a mistake you won't make again because you looked at it,
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  you analyze it, you understand how it happened.
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  Now you move on. Well, hopefully you don't make that same mistake again,
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  if you can process it and understand that value of failure.
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  And that was kind of a common thread throughout the book. But it is one of those
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  ones that I took with me into the book of like, okay, listen,
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  man, if I just look at failure as the end all be all, then guess what?
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  It's going to be the end all be all.
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  But if you can look at failure as a catalyst, as a way to move forward,
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  almost like a trampoline, now all of a sudden, then it's no longer failure.
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  It's just this great learning opportunity that you had.
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  And that can go even for like dating relationships, you know.
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  Same thing there. Like, okay, well, how did I screw up this last one?
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  And how can I make this next one better? You know?
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  And just for the magicians listening, can you just explain what dating is?
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  Dating is. Okay, so that is where two people, they like each other and they
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  get to spend time together in a lot of different ways. There you go.
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  Holy shit, Josh, are we dating?
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  I think i think so yeah on some planet i imagine so,
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  you know i thought funny yeah yeah so i agree what you're saying when when you're
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  when you give yourself permission to fail because i think at the very least
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  what you do is you find out a way not to do it you know which is equally as
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  important you know it could be something as simple as like,
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  making a coffee right it's like you know you might just say it's,
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  coffee, sugar, and milk, but,
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  sometimes the order in which you do that matters in order to make the best cup
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  of coffee is just a very simple, you know, way of looking at it,
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  you know, and then there's minute
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  moments through that, the temperature of water, et cetera, et cetera.
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  So all those things are kind of important, but it's, you know,
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  the, the, the phrase that's around the book says like, failure is the father of creativity. Yeah.
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  You mentioned in the book, like i'm far from being like by the way the end of
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  that that i wrote i said failure is the father of creativity i have no clue
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  who the mother is so that is the whole whole statement yeah,
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  i never knew my real mom you know like you you openly state that you're not
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  an authority on creativity at all and i'm just wondering how that helped you
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  with your interviewing process by understanding that i had more to learn i think.
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  The moment you stop learning is the moment you start dying, in my opinion.
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  So if I'm going to step into this arena, interview these people who've accomplished,
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  a whole heck of a lot in the world of magic and some of them beyond,
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  I got to come to that table with humility and say, I can learn from you.
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  And what can I learn from you? And I've got a lot of questions that I want to ask you if that's okay.
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  And how can I learn from this process? and i think as long as i can stay humble
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  and continue to learn i think,
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  everyone can grow in creativity and,
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  be a better performer to the process as long as you're humble enough to realize
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  i have more to learn i have more to learn i have so much more to learn,
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  and i think we probably have you all have probably been in scenarios where like
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  yeah you're kicking butt you're kicking butt but then you get around somebody
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  and you're like dude that's the next level type stuff you know you know And the thing was.
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  The last time I felt like that good and proper was when I was hanging out with,
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  Kyle Pernell at the Magic Live convention, who you interviewed for the book.
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  And I thought, let me just rattle off some of the names of the brains you were
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  able to pick from this so that folks listening would know that they're going
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  to get information from people like Blake Voigt, Suzanne, David Parr, Kyle Pernell.
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  There is over 20 names in here, so I'll just let the few that you may know.
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  Wes Barker, friend of the show, James Brown, Eric LeClaire, Mind to Mind,
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  the amazing Fism Mind Reading Act. We have Mark James, Kevin James,
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  Bizarro is on there, Jason Latimer.
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  There is so many brilliant creative folks on there that you had the pleasure
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  of interviewing. So there is a wealth of knowledge in this book, kids.
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  And that was the fun part where, yeah, you're first drawn to the big names in the industry.
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  And I did reach out to them. I can tell you this.
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  If I didn't get ghosted, this book would have been over a thousand pages long
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  because there were so many conversations I was having with yeses, even at Magic Live.
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  This person said, yes, yes, yes. Reach out to them. Conversation is going,
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  but it just didn't go anywhere.
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  But what I love about this set of individuals who were kind enough to share
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  their knowledge with me is, yeah, you've got some people who are created a ton of things.
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  So you have the creativity where they've created products, but you have this
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  other level of creativity where they're taking an idea.
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  And this is the difference between invention and innovation,
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  by the way, where they're taking this idea that's already there and they're
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  making it their own through innovation.
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  And I think by seeing what they're doing in all these different angles and how
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  people think, Yes, there's overlap. Absolutely, there's overlap.
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  But just hearing their stories of how they came up with this idea or how they
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  make their presentations or their tricks their own, that's where the gold lies.
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  And that's why I really enjoyed all these interviews for different reasons for certain.
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  But I will tell you this freaking Blake Voight man and so this book is written
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  in in chronological order he just happened to be the first interview for the
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  book and I got done with that interview I'm like.
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  What am I going to do now? This guy is the ambassador of creativity.
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  He's got all these great ideas and all these.
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  So I was like, oh, gosh. Well, then Suzanne came through. Now,
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  Suzanne has done some amazing things here in the States. Just a great, warm personality.
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  And I talked to her and she's got some different ideas. And then you talk to
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  the next person. They've got some different ideas.
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  And of course, Kyle Purnell is just off the charts with taking,
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  you know, pieces of paper somehow and changing it around. And all of a sudden
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  you have this thing you cut out is now over here.
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  Like he's just a genius in that department. It was a great interview. Absolutely.
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  To you. Yeah. Yeah. You know, Blake Voight goes on to say in the book that like,
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  deliberately generating bad ideas and just giving yourself permission.
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  He goes, sometimes as many as 10 ideas a day, just because good ideas eventually
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  will emerge from a pile. It's like finding a rose in the garden of weeds.
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  Have you started doing that yourself?
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  I have not. That's the.
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  I think it's a fantastic idea, so I would never shoot it down.
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  I, it's just not because I'm juggling so many different things in my life,
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  writing down 10 different ideas with teaching and everything else is a little
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  bit more than probably what I want.
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  But I think from what I've seen in my own classroom, because I give them an
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  activity where they have to just spew out idea after idea. And I'm,
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  I tell them I'm going to reject maybe 20 of them.
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  I think it's a fantastic activity. And when I interviewed him, he was on cruise.
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  He was on a cruise line and he was going to debut a brand new trick that night
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  because he had given himself the parameters and said okay while i'm on this cruise i'm going to
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  create a trick and perform it for the first time now he had already had the
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  ideas back here they'd been working on before but he like took that and was
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  like i'm going to put it out there and talk about
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  no fear of failure i mean this guy's got no fear of failure because
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  he has gone through that process is a bad idea, bad idea, bad idea,
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  bad idea. Oh, there's the good one.
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  So I definitely would support and think it is a great idea. It's not something
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  I put into practice at this point yet.
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  I do have got another buddy of mine, Jimmy Ichihana has done that and he's extremely
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  creative. I love brainstorming with him because he'll just throw out and he's
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  just a card genius. That's what he focuses on.
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  But you throw anything else at him and he can think of other ways to be creative
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  with it. So I got to say, it's probably a great testament that that's a great
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  way to strengthen that creative muscle.
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  Yeah. I think that there's a, there's a, there's a danger when magicians are
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  trying to come up with ideas. They're so desperate to have a good one that they
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  kill the possibility of having any, any ideas at all. And that's so unhealthy.
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  And look, even in, even in my relationships, man, like when I want to discuss
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  something, whether it's a good or bad idea, like I want to discuss a bad idea
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  to the bitter end and know that it's a bad idea.
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  You know what? It could be something
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  as simple as like, let's discuss what we're going to do on holiday.
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  Oh, that's a bad idea. We shouldn't do it like that. Cause then we're going
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  to miss out on all this other stuff we could be doing while we're on that in
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  that country you know but like
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  i need to talk about it to the bitter end and know that it's a bad idea,
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  in the whole theoretical sense you know yeah but what you all do on this show
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  is is a great creative exercise when you're spitballing and you're just throwing
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  things out and you've got these ideas and like taking this
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  this concept and you're going to twist this and do this and do that yeah they
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  might not be the greatest ideas in the world but guess what you're doing you're
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  just putting yourself in that that position to start to view things in a creative
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  way and i think that is what i wanted one of the things i wanted to get across with that book that
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  a lot of people claim they're not creative but if you force yourself to.
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  Be around people who are creative or you force yourself into that position like
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  i'm going to create and have different ideas or have conversations about creativity,
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  inherently you're going to get better at it oh so that that's why i love good,
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  okay it's a two-minute exercise are you ready for this so i had an inquiry so
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  i got an event inquiry yesterday for a fashion show where they want me to do
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  magic bits like they're going little bits of magic up and down the,
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  like on the catwalk and i'm like i think that's a stupid idea is what i said
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  openly i'm like that's dumb i go we're trying to celebrate the fashion and you're gonna have me,
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  take away from that you know and this is gonna be like a thing where people get awards, you know?
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  So what if the trick makes the dress a bit better than it should be and stuff?
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  So I just said to him, I go, look, so he's the idea of this.
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  They walk on, walk forward, walk back, little magic moment. And then we separate.
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  I go, do you want to do that?
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  I'll come up with something. And they're like, yeah, what do you got in mind?
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  And I was like, okay, I got to do 10 separate little bits of magic.
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  And I was like, there's going to be five dudes and five chicks who are going
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  to be doing this fashion show with an award at the end of it.
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  And that's why I'm throwing it out right now. And guys in the chat, feel free to jump in.
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  But what I was thinking was like, okay, it's fashion, it's chic,
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  it's sleek it's got to be something and this is,
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  literally how my brain worked and i spat out like 10 ideas in like 30 seconds right,
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  and so i said okay i think if we're going to do the dudes it needs to be something
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  that's kind of makes them look cool so maybe if at the end of it like as they
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  walk back you know it could be something like boom produce a cigar they take
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  the cigar and a scotch and they walk off the stage because he's wearing a nice suit,
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  you know like you you know balloon pop give him a champagne he takes a glass
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  and goes thank you then walks off like There's got to be something like, boom, a cane.
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  He takes the cane, twirls it as he walks off. There's got to be something to
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  accentuate the man's style and celebrate him and celebrate the outfit.
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  And I go, and I said, for the girls, I go straight up, everyone gets a rose. That's it.
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  I go, every girl gets a rose. Like, I mean, that flash paper,
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  rose, something, rose, confetti, rose. Like every girl gets a rose.
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  That's it. Like they don't get nothing else except roses.
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  And I even said for the guys, I was like, you know, like I, you know,
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  give him a, give him a glass. I grab a bottle of water. I pour it.
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  It turns into wine. He says, cheers and walks away.
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  You know, like just. Well, what you did right there, I think is,
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  is great testament to creativity. where you're like, it doesn't have to be about
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  you. You're like, how can you be the vessel to make them continue to look good?
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  Because you could have turned that and said, okay, well, I'm going to do a quick
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  change and I'm going to do this type of thing.
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  But you're like, no, I need to make sure that they are looking good.
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  So I'm enhancing instead of taking away, which I think that in itself,
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  it was a great mature decision to be able, especially on the moment,
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  to be able to spew that back and say, hey, I've got this idea where they're
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  going to look good versus it's about me type thing.
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  The thing that comes to mind, just thinking of it from a different perspective,
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  just for fun because we're on the podcast,
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  an interesting idea would be if instead of you doing a magic moment every time
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  someone walks past, what if every time they walk past you, each person gives
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  you essentially a newspaper restoration.
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  So each person gives you a square of newspaper.
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  Paper just they do the thing come back take out of their pocket they just give
• 22:05
  you this thing and every time they do that and so everyone's like why are they
• 22:10
  giving him this paper this makes no sense and then at the end,
• 22:14
  you used to end up and then you're like and it's and you would make that mean
• 22:18
  something like that's kind of fun because then it's like this mystery of why
• 22:23
  do they keep giving him this thing and then at the end it makes sense bang goes back to one.
• 22:28
  Yeah, that's an interesting thread. If every other person, maybe every other
• 22:31
  person, like you said, the first fella, he gets a cigar, but then the next time
• 22:37
  you get a piece of the paper and kind of weave those two things together.
• 22:41
  So you have this running thread to get to the end, but you've had these other
• 22:44
  great flashy moments throughout.
• 22:47
  So I got booked for a super last minute one yesterday, right?
• 22:52
  And I'm going to read the brief to you.
• 22:54
  So this is, it's annoying because I had so much I needed to do today,
• 22:57
  but now I've got to create all this stuff of like three last minute gigs now.
• 23:02
  And this one is for a particular brand of, I think they're like a skincare company,
• 23:08
  but yeah, like a skincare brand.
• 23:11
  And this is what, this is what the brief is. The concept involves performing,
• 23:16
  quick closeup magic tricks inside of a four level office.
• 23:21
  So a very short elevator ride but a four-level office elevator for tenants during
• 23:28
  their morning commute with interactions filmed for social channels,
• 23:34
  oh cool okay so yeah it was thing,
• 23:38
  machine gun style stuff yeah,
• 23:41
  i think that i would i prefer to film it more like an office sort of thing you
• 23:46
  know like you know i had like that candid style thing where someone comes in
• 23:48
  like the things open up in a fire my ah i'm like oh what is it is there a bug.
• 23:54
  You know like you know just be like i want to show you something real cool and
• 23:56
  then it's like it's then it's in my eye and i'm like can you see it's hard to
• 23:59
  it's hard to see because you're not,
• 24:01
  she's not looking you know and just and like walk around the office and have
• 24:04
  like conversations and be mic'd up i think that is where the social um media
• 24:09
  aspect is going to really shine you know but,
• 24:12
  yeah so wait is this supposed to just happen on the elevator it's supposed to
• 24:16
  happen just in the elevator i think the pitch is,
• 24:20
  do they want me to perform so i'm going to be in an elevator performing how
• 24:24
  long is a four level ride it's it's 30 seconds,
• 24:27
  it's kind of fun because now you have this yeah the time the time pressure is
• 24:32
  kind of fun because you can be like come in we only have 30 seconds quick pick
• 24:35
  a card quick sign it blah blah blah we don't have time,
• 24:37
  and then you're like oh i can't you know i can't reveal the card we're out of
• 24:41
  time but then they walk out and the card is like stuck to the wall on the outside
• 24:45
  of the elevator or on their back yeah,
• 24:47
  yeah on their back don't be weird that's you know too far.
• 24:53
  Or like you got you know delight with the the elevator button you know or like
• 24:57
  it squeaks when you push the button and you know,
• 25:01
  yeah yeah it could be fun like the idea of we we don't have long so let's go,
• 25:08
  yeah you you would actually need to get in and time that to figure out how much time you do have cool,
• 25:13
  i'm being thrown in the deep end so are you saying we will see this on the socials
• 25:18
  at some point nick i have no idea it's all i know is that that's the space like
• 25:22
  it's to be filmed for social channels so like their own personal,
• 25:27
  maybe in-house social channels but like it's,
• 25:30
  what kind of weird stuff do you all have going on in australia you've got this
• 25:33
  and wasn't last week you were talking about someone wanted to book you to be
• 25:36
  on a plane to entertain somebody for 10, these kids for 10 hours.
• 25:40
  What's weird this is going on down there, down South, man.
• 25:43
  We gotta, we gotta be creative with the type of gigs we can get, you know? I guess so.
• 25:50
  Your next gig's gonna be like, hey, we need you to be able to perform magic
• 25:53
  while riding horseback backwards.
• 25:56
  And yeah.
• 25:58
  Well, I did get an inquiry asking if the pony that we own, if I could do a gig
• 26:03
  for this vet conference, could I do magic like with this pony?
• 26:09
  To which I said, no, that's just too much effort.
• 26:14
  No, no ponies. No ponies. Yeah. I don't blame you for that. But if it's in an
• 26:19
  elevator, sign me up, but they didn't have one.
• 26:21
  It would be bad. Can you make the pony appear in the elevator?
• 26:25
  Now we're talking. Now we're talking.
• 26:28
  Right that's a reputation maker if there's an elevator of course but it couldn't supply one,
• 26:36
  same with the plane gig i would have done the plane gig but i'm like i need
• 26:38
  an elevator on the plane they said sorry we don't have it's cramping your style literally yeah,
• 26:45
  yeah yeah there is yeah so look there's a level of creativity that needs to
• 26:48
  happen and there's so many ways to approach it definitely some people do it
• 26:51
  in the form of a single trick or just use it as a medium to portray a message
• 26:56
  or to celebrate someone.
• 26:57
  Like that's one of the most important things I always try to do when performing.
• 27:00
  Celebrate a person for being, if you're going to come up on stage,
• 27:04
  you're going to be celebrated. You sold the cube behind your back,
• 27:06
  et cetera, et cetera. I think that's an important one. But you can do that?
• 27:12
  Yeah. Yeah. I saw this guy on Australia's Got Talent. He did something with cubes a long time ago.
• 27:19
  He brags out being able to do a backflip and I don't know. I don't know.
• 27:22
  You'll have to look him up. You'll have to look him up.
• 27:25
  Yeah man that'd be amazing we should interview him on the pod we should totally
• 27:28
  interview that guy in the pod yeah i will make him make him do the pod all by
• 27:33
  himself one week i think that would be even better see see how he swept it out,
• 27:38
  yeah yeah that funnily enough like that went way too fast when i was just allowed
• 27:43
  to talk by myself for an hour it was surprisingly uncomfortably easy to do.
• 27:50
  And i will also say my australia's got talent auditions can be found on my website
• 27:55
  if you do want to watch it but what i will say is like i was i was pretty proud of my,
• 28:01
  first appearance like the actual audition but the semi-final semi-final performance with the cubes,
• 28:09
  i can't watch because like for how much i've worked on my cube acts since then
• 28:14
  and how much more entertaining i made them,
• 28:17
  i'm just doing like straight up cue magic with nothing other than just like
• 28:23
  textbook stuff and i remember being sick that night and and just like and there's
• 28:27
  so many weird things like
• 28:29
  they maybe come out to reshoot some stuff that the cameras didn't pick up but
• 28:32
  now their judges aren't acting like they were the first time because,
• 28:36
  i'm just repeating the same thing for the point of wait i shouldn't i shouldn't,
• 28:41
  it still helped me so i shouldn't make excuses but you don't have to watch it
• 28:46
  but that's a testament to your growth from that like if if if you look at something
• 28:50
  from five years ago and you can't see growth in that time period
• 28:54
  then shame on you like we should be continually growing and in our,
• 28:58
  and life let alone just our performance style so yeah of course so then go out
• 29:03
  and do try it again you know but i i think you're beating yourself up pretty
• 29:07
  good about it but that was the younger version of you you know,
• 29:11
  nick i like this guy Yeah. Ain't it great?
• 29:15
  There you go what i'm curious out of all the knowledge you gathered from the
• 29:20
  people you interviewed there was a few of them talked about like when ideas
• 29:24
  were worth continuing or worth leaving on the shelf,
• 29:28
  that's i think it's a very important lesson for people where you know there's ideas that i've had,
• 29:34
  and like for example you know i've talked about this routine on the pod quite
• 29:38
  a bit about these ideas of like this whole wishes routine which i've been putting
• 29:41
  together with the help from the guys who listen on the show and in the discord, you know,
• 29:45
  and it's taken 11 years to get it right,
• 29:49
  you know, to the point where it's happy to go on stage.
• 29:51
  So, you know, there's a lot of ideas in that sense where you can create,
• 29:55
  shelve them and come back to them later. Now, I know that's spoken quite a bit
• 29:59
  in the book. Would you like to speak to that just for anyone who is creative
• 30:02
  or hoping to have an idea someday?
• 30:05
  I think one of the things in In order to be able to do what you described,
• 30:10
  you need to document it some way, somehow.
• 30:13
  You need to document it. Whether you've just recorded a video and you've uploaded
• 30:17
  it to YouTube and it's unlisted or private, that you have some sort of documentation
• 30:22
  of it at this point in time.
• 30:24
  And if you realize you're just not getting the traction that you want with it,
• 30:28
  that's when you just, okay, I've got it documented. I know what I was thinking at this moment in time.
• 30:34
  Let me work on some other things. And what's brilliant about the brain,
• 30:38
  and I'm sure you've experienced this, is it will continue to solve problems
• 30:42
  when you're not thinking about it.
• 30:43
  And it might be when you're driving. It might be right when you wake up.
• 30:46
  It might be in the shower or mowing the grass or whatever. Then all of a sudden.
• 30:51
  That's what was missing.
• 30:53
  So I think this goes almost hand in hand with giving yourself the opportunity,
• 30:57
  forgiveness to fail and the chance to fail.
• 31:00
  But give yourself that time to let the idea develop.
• 31:05
  And just like what josh had mentioned about yeah he could see the growth and
• 31:09
  he was kind of embarrassed where it is
• 31:11
  well yeah because he's grown so much he can see what's happened and i think
• 31:15
  ideas are very similar they take time to nurture and sprout and it just takes
• 31:19
  one little idea oh my gosh,
• 31:21
  chris pillsworth was a great example of it he's got this great trick that involves
• 31:26
  the cactus in a balloon right yes exactly what it sounds like and he talked about the struggle.
• 31:32
  He had had this idea, but he wasn't sure I was going to come together.
• 31:35
  And it just was there. And it had been shelved. It was just there.
• 31:39
  And then he was in the mall and he walked around and they were one of the Build-A-Bear
• 31:43
  centers. And they had the big old dome around the bear.
• 31:48
  He's like, that's it. That's how I'm going to do it. I can now put the cactus
• 31:51
  in this balloon bubble looking thing.
• 31:54
  So I think giving up fully on an idea, just document it.
• 31:59
  Have it in your mind and then you will actually pick up, it's that reticular
• 32:03
  activating system, which I talk about all the time, basically in both the books
• 32:07
  and everything else, that your brain will begin to recognize something.
• 32:11
  What that reticular activating system does, it is a filter system because we
• 32:14
  are hit with trillions of bits of information every second, every day.
• 32:18
  And this just filters out what's important. The best example of that is you
• 32:22
  buy a new car and you're like, I'm excited. I'm going to be the only one on the road with,
• 32:26
  Oh, wait, there's one. Wait, no, there's one.
• 32:30
  Wait, no, I didn't realize everybody in the world was driving the same car.
• 32:34
  Well, now you've told your brain this is important.
• 32:36
  Once you've got it documented and once you've got it stored away, give it time to breathe.
• 32:40
  It knows it's important and it
• 32:42
  might see that connection that you need to have. Just give it the moment.
• 32:47
  I think that's probably one. And that's advice from myself and advice from quite
• 32:51
  a few of these other different artists who contributed to the book. Yeah.
• 32:56
  You know, there was a couple of takeaways I grabbed from some of the people
• 32:59
  like Rachel Wax and so forth.
• 33:00
  So I want to shoot off some of the comments that I've had because Carl Purnell
• 33:04
  like hit me the hardest and I absolutely loved it.
• 33:06
  Now his section had a really interesting distinction that I'd like to share
• 33:11
  with the audience. And it was this, you don't necessarily need an original method,
• 33:16
  but you need an original voice.
• 33:20
  And his thoughts on that were so interesting. And I thought that maybe you'd like to speak to that.
• 33:26
  But I think he touched on that and a couple others talked on it.
• 33:29
  It's like, how can you, because the original voice can take you from like,
• 33:35
  oh, well, I'm just not, can't invent things. So by the way, inventing means
• 33:38
  you're creating something from scratch, from new.
• 33:41
  But it can take you, having your own voice can take you from being an inventor,
• 33:45
  to a much probably more comfortable lane of being an innovator.
• 33:50
  Because now you can take this idea. It could be a classic of magic.
• 33:54
  It could be the cups and balls or a chop cup or something.
• 33:58
  But now you can take this classic idea and figure out how can you express what
• 34:03
  you want through your voice?
• 34:05
  What are you trying to get across
• 34:07
  through this? And quite a few different artists talked about it a bit.
• 34:11
  Mark James was one of them. He loved to incorporate movies.
• 34:14
  He's just a big movie buff. He had a bunch of tattoos from Back to the Future on his arm.
• 34:19
  And so he talked about how he can weave that into his voice and his presentation.
• 34:24
  And, and Kyle was, I think the first one to really bring up the importance of having that voice. And.
• 34:32
  It's not easy. It's kind of like putting that creative idea on the shelf and
• 34:36
  just kind of letting it grow. But that's what happens with your voice.
• 34:40
  Your voice is going to be different. My voice is going to be different.
• 34:43
  And probably 10 years from now, I'm going to be an old man. I'm just going to
• 34:45
  want to be this mean magician yelling at all the kids driving by so fast.
• 34:51
  But in the meantime, I think it's important that you've got to think about what your voice is.
• 34:55
  What is the message you want to get across? And then how can your magic fit
• 35:00
  that narrative, fit that feeling, fit that vibe.
• 35:03
  And I think that's what's really important. I know Blake talked about being
• 35:06
  able to be creative with David Blaine and he could easily be creative with David Blaine,
• 35:13
  but even David knew that David Blaine could perform some things,
• 35:19
  but not other things because he knew the voice of David Blaine.
• 35:22
  I know it's kind of weird for them to talk in third in person in that scenario,
• 35:26
  but I think sorting out it, and it begins by just saying, all right, what is my voice?
• 35:31
  What am I trying to say? What am I trying to get across? And by beginning with
• 35:35
  those questions, then that can lead to creativity. I'm like, oh, well.
• 35:41
  I really love plants and growing plants. And then, well, then how can you begin
• 35:46
  to weave that into your voice and what you share when you do magic?
• 35:51
  And I think that's one of the things that Kyle was getting at and quite a few
• 35:55
  other contributors got at, was to be truly creative.
• 36:00
  We're all really creative because we're different.
• 36:04
  But how do we go about expressing that? You find your voice.
• 36:07
  You figure out what you want to say, how you want to say it.
• 36:13
  So another question I have, well, it's another interesting statement,
• 36:16
  which I think needs to be discussed.
• 36:19
  So Wes Barker, friend of the pod, essentially says he would rather do,
• 36:24
  and this is important, rather do a slightly worse magic show if it means doing
• 36:31
  a better Wes Barker show.
• 36:34
  And that's such an interesting distinction, which kind of speaks to having your own voice.
• 36:41
  It does. It really does. And he, he was great about it because he understands
• 36:44
  he could go out there and do the killer material material every single night, every single night.
• 36:50
  But one, if he wants to get better with new material, he needs to do a little
• 36:53
  bit lesser version or less great material.
• 36:57
  Performance because he needs to work on this and he understands like yeah he
• 37:01
  could do all these things that are real but if he wants to be the best west
• 37:05
  barker he can possibly be,
• 37:06
  he's like i i'm gonna dig i'm gonna dig deep and sacrifice some of the the frills
• 37:12
  that i could have and adulation that i could get from over here,
• 37:16
  by being the best guy i can be because guess what the more he works on that
• 37:20
  or the more you or anybody else works on your voice to be the best it can be
• 37:24
  the next time you perform it, you become a little bit better at it.
• 37:27
  And then the next time, a little bit more comfortable with it.
• 37:30
  So then if this is not the original authentic Wes Barker or you or anybody else,
• 37:36
  and he's starting down here, you just kind of slowly, incrementally bringing
• 37:40
  it up to where like, oh, now you're 100% creative because you started working
• 37:46
  with your own idea, your own voice, your own creativity.
• 37:49
  But yeah, I actually highlight, I think that's one of the best ideas that he
• 37:54
  shared in his interview.
• 37:56
  Yeah. You know, Bizarro also talks about establishing rules,
• 38:00
  which he mentioned on an episode, an interview only a few episodes ago in his
• 38:06
  lecture notes as well, which were shared in the discord.
• 38:08
  And it was this, this notion of establishing the rules of your own reality bubble.
• 38:14
  And I think that that is such an interesting thing.
• 38:18
  And he, he's such a great, like, if you haven't watched it, okay.
• 38:23
  Can I talk about the promos real quick for these books?
• 38:25
  Sure. Both of the promos of the practice playbook and the creative book.
• 38:29
  I, I was trying to, I was kind of poking fun at the magic community.
• 38:32
  Cause I feel like there's been so many promos that have, that have been released.
• 38:36
  They're just overly dramatic and people are walking in slow motion and they
• 38:40
  got close up of their eyes and like, and they've got them doing this.
• 38:43
  And I'm like, it's a freaking card trick, man.
• 38:45
  So with both the promos, I tried to capture that.
• 38:49
  And Bizarro was so kind that I sent him the script for the promo for the creative
• 38:53
  book. And I'm like, hey, man, here's your lead in.
• 38:56
  Just give me some Bizarro. I need like a quick little two second thing.
• 39:00
  And in the video, you just got to watch the video and just see what he does.
• 39:04
  I'm like, that's perfect Bizarro.
• 39:06
  That is perfect Bizarro. And you're right. He talks about the reality bubble.
• 39:10
  And which is which again he's creating this world and his idea is to create
• 39:15
  this world and he's like okay can i do x in this world yes can i do y in this
• 39:20
  world no no and i think it goes back to a lot of the discussions you all have
• 39:23
  had before on the podcast it's like.
• 39:26
  What is your magic ability what's your superpower right do you have the ability to levitate things
• 39:31
  well if you take that and put that in your your your bubble here can that happen
• 39:35
  in your bubble yes no okay well then
• 39:37
  eliminate that and i think even having that concept there gets to sort through
• 39:42
  once again and fine-tune that voice that you are hopefully we're all hopefully
• 39:46
  creating to be at least a unique voice.
• 39:50
  One if i can give an example for me like one of in my performance character
• 39:55
  like in my bubble when i'm performing in my head my character has a full thick head of hair,
• 40:02
  like just in my own surreal world and that's why i'm always pulling out this
• 40:05
  toothless comb flicking my hair back whatever and another thing is a decision
• 40:12
  i made is my character is not a mind reader,
• 40:16
  like a straight up think of anything i can tell you what it is and,
• 40:21
  so i put more time into the other character elements instead of trying to buy
• 40:25
  the latest pad that can do the most craziest mind reading thing which is amazing
• 40:29
  and it's kind of that thing of i'd rather have a less,
• 40:33
  impressive moment that can build to be more of a Josh Norbedo moment or whatever.
• 40:38
  And then I was learning from Ben Earle's The Family subscription,
• 40:44
  still one of the greatest investments I've ever had.
• 40:46
  And he always does card magic because that's his thing.
• 40:51
  He even said in a world where people don't like card magic anymore,
• 40:54
  he would still do it and just have less opportunities to perform it.
• 40:58
  Anyway, a lesson comes out and it's a freaking mind reading trick,
• 41:02
  like a straight up write something down, like a name, and I'm going to divine
• 41:06
  what it is. And I was like, this is so not Ben Earle.
• 41:09
  But then the performance of it was still sleight of hand to the audience.
• 41:18
  And it made sense that a sleight of hand artist was doing this effect because
• 41:23
  of the way he was performing it.
• 41:25
  So he was performing it in a way where after they'd written down the name,
• 41:28
  he's like, put up your hand.
• 41:29
  I'm going to do sleight of hand right now to, to divine what name you're thinking of.
• 41:34
  And so they put up their hand and they put their fingers, Ben's fingers against
• 41:37
  their fingers. And they're like, don't give anything away, but just think of
• 41:41
  like how many letters are in the name as I like touch your fingers.
• 41:44
  And he's like, oh, I'm picking up.
• 41:45
  There's more than five. Cause you're not sure there's a bit of,
• 41:47
  you know, and he's going into how mentalists would make things make sense of cues and stuff.
• 41:54
  They're picking up off the person but it's off of the fingers which is still
• 41:58
  sleight of hand in a way so when he's like apparently getting these sherlock
• 42:03
  home reads on the person from their from their fingers.
• 42:07
  And he reveals the name it makes like now it fits the character,
• 42:12
  and so now after watching that i'm like oh my god so i can do this trick now
• 42:17
  again because i love you know Acidus Novus will forever be my favorite billet
• 42:22
  peak instead of spending $5,000.
• 42:25
  But now I can do that, but still as a sleight of hand character and I can do
• 42:29
  it through this thing. And I'm like, oh my God.
• 42:32
  Okay, thank you for listening to my TED Talk. No, but you're getting at something
• 42:36
  that I think is extremely important when it comes to creativity.
• 42:40
  It's mentioned, I mentioned it kind of early on, Blake gets into it early on,
• 42:44
  and quite a few other people mention it early on.
• 42:46
  And that is giving yourself parameters and guidelines.
• 42:49
  And by what you've done is you've described, yes, you have your voice,
• 42:53
  but you've also given yourself that bubble, which is nothing more than the parameters
• 42:58
  and guidelines that you want to stick to.
• 43:00
  But realizing like, wait a second, I can still fit things in here that look
• 43:05
  a little bit different because that's still part of that reality bubble.
• 43:08
  And by having those parameters, you've been able to sort out and not make a
• 43:13
  silly purchase like I did at Magic Live, which was the phone for $250.
• 43:18
  And I told you all about it. And you're like, really?
• 43:20
  Really? Are you really going to use that? And no, I never did.
• 43:23
  But by having those parameters, one, it will keep you from purchasing every
• 43:27
  new product in the world.
• 43:29
  But it'll get that voice, it'll fit your voice better so then you can express more with that magic.
• 43:35
  And I think you brought up a really great point without physically saying it's
• 43:39
  parameters, but it helps. It actually helps when you're creating something to
• 43:43
  have those guide rails or those guard rails throughout the process. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
• 43:49
  Well, I feel better about my life now. How about you, Nick? You should.
• 43:52
  You should. I'll send you the bill. I'll send you the bill.
• 43:56
  Yeah. Well, I think what you touched upon as well is that when you find pieces,
• 44:00
  when you start having your own voice, you start to put pieces together that
• 44:03
  ultimately become personality pieces.
• 44:05
  And I learned that from Fielding West's DVDs. He does this hilarious routine
• 44:10
  where he makes a tiger seemingly appear from under a tarp.
• 44:16
  And he basically goes under the tarp trying to get this tiger out.
• 44:19
  And then he comes out with all his clothes shredded and he's like,
• 44:22
  the amazing tiger under the, you know, so, and it's like, it's,
• 44:28
  it's yeah. And it's such a personality piece and it's so clever.
• 44:32
  Like, you know, it's, it's his, you know what I mean?
• 44:34
  If you were to do it, it could only really be his, you know?
• 44:37
  And it's that type of thing that as everything sort of progresses,
• 44:40
  I think Rachel wax talks about it quite well.
• 44:42
  And she makes a point as to why personality pieces are good.
• 44:45
  So Rachel wax, amazing talent. I saw her perform at Magic Live some three years
• 44:50
  ago now. I've been a fan of her since, so we should bring her on. It'd be great.
• 44:54
  Well, she talks about making material so personal that someone basically can't
• 45:00
  steal it without stealing your childhood and your personality.
• 45:06
  And that's where it's at. And I think when you reach this level where it's so
• 45:11
  impossible to get a copycat, you know, there's a very interesting lesson in creativity there.
• 45:18
  Yeah and i think that goes to it is understanding your voice but scripting to
• 45:24
  your voice which i think is extremely important because what she has done is.
• 45:29
  One i i loved her interview i've never met her in person but we started talking
• 45:33
  and i was like oh i've known you for 15 years like just easygoing and i think
• 45:37
  she'd be great to have on the podcast because she's
• 45:39
  done some amazing things with magic but she's got this great trick where she
• 45:42
  talked about stabbing a pervert where she to have a card stab but,
• 45:46
  how can i make it make sense in the setting it's like well i'm in new york city
• 45:50
  and and she how she kind of goes through the the creative process of getting to this idea,
• 45:55
  and because there's enough of her own personality brought in you can try to
• 46:00
  perform some of these tricks,
• 46:03
  but this is not going to land the same for certain it's just like i think yeah
• 46:07
  i read it years ago and one of banachek's books and they're like you can't be
• 46:11
  a 17 year old or 14 year old kids saying, yes, when I was traveling through India and I
• 46:16
  was going through the Taj Mahal and I did this and that. And I'm like,
• 46:20
  no one's going to freaking believe you.
• 46:21
  But if you have real stories that you've connected to your magic,
• 46:25
  now all of a sudden you can try to steal it. You can steal the method.
• 46:30
  You could steal the effect, but man, stay away from that story because that
• 46:33
  story is mine. It's real.
• 46:36
  Yeah. Yeah. I mean, just say I fell over off my skateboard. I hit my head and
• 46:40
  And now I can, and when the paramedics were there, I could read all their minds.
• 46:44
  They were so worried about me, you know?
• 46:46
  Yeah, like being 18 and saying, I am a body language expert,
• 46:51
  and now I will blah, blah, blah.
• 46:54
  Not hardly, son. Not unless you started studying it. Yeah.
• 46:59
  Because you cannot tell how much I can't stand your breath now, can you, buddy? Can you?
• 47:04
  See, this face, the face I make for the YouTube watchers out there when I wish you had a mint.
• 47:10
  Exactly. But I wanted, if we can, I want to dive into one of the hidden... messages in the book.
• 47:19
  As we travel, it's hidden in plain sight. I mean, it is that keyword impactful.
• 47:25
  I don't know if you can see it with that impactful.
• 47:28
  And I mean, even this, there you go. Even this t-shirt that I'm wearing is kind
• 47:32
  of something from the book, Impact Outlasts Applause.
• 47:35
  And where I led with this book was now you've got all these creative synapses.
• 47:44
  What are you going to do with it?
• 47:45
  Is the end goal to make all the money and the fame, or can you actually use
• 47:50
  it to be even more impactful as a performer?
• 47:54
  So I started at, towards the end of the book, some of these interviews that
• 47:57
  I had with Jason Latimer and Caleb Wiles and Diana Zimmerman and Chris Rose,
• 48:04
  they have all taken magic,
• 48:07
  but they've added this other twist to it that makes it so much more impactful.
• 48:13
  For example, like Jason Latimer has done this impossible magic thing.
• 48:17
  And he's got this whole empire that he's created on the West Coast of the United
• 48:21
  States and in California. And he's all over the country.
• 48:23
  He was here shortly after I interviewed him in Orlando and he was performing
• 48:27
  at the Science Center where he's taking his brilliant mind of understanding
• 48:31
  science and physics, combining,
• 48:33
  the magic elements to it and been able to impact thousands and thousands of
• 48:38
  students and inspire them.
• 48:41
  And Caleb Wiles does something like Magic for a Cause, where he and a team of
• 48:47
  other magicians will put on a show for nonprofit organizations with helping them to raise money.
• 48:55
  Chris Rose, magicians on mission, and he's done something where he's taken magic
• 49:00
  and he's connected a group of magicians together where they go out to foreign
• 49:05
  countries and perform for.
• 49:07
  Soldiers who are stationed there overseas, and they step into those arenas there.
• 49:12
  And that's really one of the things that I was trying to weave in,
• 49:15
  like, okay, you can be creative, but how can you also be impactful through the process?
• 49:20
  Because once you've got that talent, yeah, it's great. You can go chase the
• 49:23
  money all you want, likes and followers all you want, but man,
• 49:27
  think about how you're leaving the world behind.
• 49:30
  Can you be more impactful with your magic?
• 49:33
  And the answer is yes. The answer
• 49:35
  is yes. And I even throw out a couple different ways you can do that.
• 49:38
  And one of the ways that I do that is I go and perform at a local hospital here,
• 49:42
  Honor Palmer Hospital for Children. The golfer in Orlando created a hospital
• 49:47
  a gazillion years ago, and I've gone there for over 20 years and performed magic for these kids.
• 49:52
  And I can tell you this, it is the most amazing thing I do, not because I'm amazing.
• 49:57
  It's because you see the resilience of these kids who are bald from chemotherapy,
• 50:04
  have no eyebrows, or they're burned from the radiation and you can see this,
• 50:07
  but they can laugh over magic. Oh my gosh.
• 50:12
  Oh my gosh. Like you walk out of the, whatever worries you had in the world,
• 50:15
  you walk away saying none of that matters. Cause if these kids are that resilient,
• 50:20
  from my little magic tricks, you're just humbled.
• 50:25
  And I think that's a great little way to start is like, how can you be more impactful?
• 50:29
  And does it mean volunteering your time, perhaps, or looking at ways like how
• 50:34
  can you create magic that's going to have people walking out,
• 50:37
  scratching their head, not necessarily how they did it,
• 50:40
  but maybe challenging them somehow to be a better person, be a better thinker.
• 50:46
  And that's kind of where I take the book towards the end of like,
• 50:50
  how can you actually be more impactful?
• 50:53
  Don't chase the applause because that's going to, that's short-lived chase the impact.
• 50:59
  Yeah. Yeah.
• 51:02
  Yeah, we're awestruck by that. It's like those damn near final words. Josh, you're muted.
• 51:07
  I had such a funny callback line just then, but I muted myself.
• 51:12
  Well, hey, run it through and we'll act like it was perfect on time.
• 51:16
  Okay, can you give us that last impact line again?
• 51:20
  And we'll stitch it together. I don't know what I just said.
• 51:23
  Because you just talked about how the kids with going through difficult times
• 51:28
  with cancer and stuff, like, you know, really left an impact.
• 51:31
  You know, I just highly encourage you, think less about the applause that you're
• 51:35
  creating, but think about the impact that you're having on these people's lives.
• 51:40
  Yeah, so his book is available on Vanishing Inc. The link is in the description
• 51:43
  below and you can get your copy using the code TheMagicGuys10.
• 51:48
  And anyway, it was probably funnier because like you were really seriously delivering,
• 51:53
  you know, your heartfelt words. And I'm like, all right, back to sales.
• 51:57
  Back to selling the book. Yeah, no.
• 51:59
  No, you don't have to buy the book.
• 52:03
  Every book that's sold, I'm just hearing now, every book that's sold,
• 52:07
  a dollar of it goes to Child Hospital Research, right?
• 52:11
  That's great. Yeah, that's fantastic. And that dollar's coming from you,
• 52:15
  right? Is that right? Yes. For every book, we will match a dollar and make a
• 52:20
  donation from the Magic Guys. But only up to 20 books.
• 52:24
  All right, wait, wait. How much money was given earlier in the show?
• 52:27
  Yeah, there you go. So $20 was given, $20 will now go to- We will cover the
• 52:31
  first 20 books that are sold from this interaction. From this interaction only, yes.
• 52:38
  As this draws to a close, we were talking about something backstage,
• 52:42
  if you will, before we went live.
• 52:45
  Do we want to circle back and mention that as we wrap this up, Eric, so it's not-
• 52:49
  Yeah, because this applies to everybody, and I have no problem sharing this.
• 52:54
  I don't put a lot of stuff out on social media. So I probably don't have the
• 52:57
  skin, the alligator skin and tough skin that so many of you have.
• 53:01
  And the question was, how do you handle when you get haters,
• 53:05
  naysayers, just negative stuff that's kind of thrown your way?
• 53:08
  And I'll talk about the book. And it happened with the book.
• 53:11
  The book came out, and it was posted on a public forum.
• 53:15
  Them, they were criticizing the cover of it. They're like, it's a book about
• 53:20
  creativity, but it looks like the cover was done in AI and just kind of just
• 53:24
  crashed. And then they got even nastier after that.
• 53:28
  And I will say this, I did hire someone to do the cover in the interior layer.
• 53:32
  They are professionals who's worked in the industry for years.
• 53:34
  And that's the tool that if they use that tool, I don't know.
• 53:37
  I never asked them because I didn't care that much if they did or not,
• 53:40
  because if that's the tool that they used to help them do the job,
• 53:43
  that's not necessarily the cross I'm going to bear or the hill I'm going to die on.
• 53:47
  But that led to that question of like, how do you actually manage when you get,
• 53:52
  negative comments? Because I think everyone is going to put something out there.
• 53:55
  You're going to get some of these negative things that can get under your skin.
• 53:58
  So I'm going to throw that to
• 53:59
  you all because you have way more experience with social media than I do.
• 54:04
  Yeah well everyone loves me josh maybe you could speak to it sorry i can't even say that seriously.
• 54:11
  I think yeah it's funny like you're right in person no one says a damn thing
• 54:17
  negative because why would you put that energy out there it's just so easy online
• 54:22
  and then it's also different in the context of where people are seeing you online like if it's
• 54:27
  if if you're watching a video on someone's own social Instagram,
• 54:32
  you're less likely to write hate knowing they're going to see it as opposed
• 54:36
  to if you saw this video on Reddit, and then you'll smash that person on Reddit
• 54:40
  because you're anonymous and you don't think they'll see it.
• 54:44
  And so it's always different to see, you know, the mind frame of people.
• 54:50
  But really, like, for me, putting out so much content, And it's weird to say,
• 54:55
  but I like any, like if people took the time to write something,
• 54:59
  it means I made them feel a certain way, whether it's good or bad.
• 55:03
  Like to me, that's a positive.
• 55:05
  And yeah, it's really hard to offend me because like I just,
• 55:09
  you know, don't take it seriously if someone writes something negative.
• 55:13
  Like there's nothing you can, like magic is such a silly, fun art form that
• 55:16
  if you say something bad about it, like who cares? It's just a silly, fun art form.
• 55:21
  Like, wow, are you complaining about how bad my false shuffle is?
• 55:25
  Like, cool, man. Like, great.
• 55:27
  I can tell you that no layman has ever said that. So it doesn't matter.
• 55:32
  You know what I mean? It's a good point.
• 55:36
  Yeah. Look, I think that there is, I've always had this mentality that those
• 55:42
  that hate need love the most.
• 55:45
  And that's what I've always told myself first. So when I, when you have these,
• 55:48
  this rudeness or whatever else, like I was performing just the other day and,
• 55:52
  this guy, it was just intimidated by me.
• 55:54
  So I knew why he was so like, cause he was there on a first date and I knew
• 55:59
  the chick and she was so excited to see me, which made him feel a little bit
• 56:02
  like off and I'm there being crazy impressive with magic and I'm doing my thing.
• 56:08
  And then he just like, he just from nowhere, like I'm doing my thing. He just went autism.
• 56:11
  Like he just said, I was like, I was like, you know what? I'm like,
• 56:15
  I'm going to look at him and be like, yeah. And I said, yeah, the coolest kind.
• 56:20
  And, and then at the end of it, he was like, so this is, this is really amazing.
• 56:25
  Like how much do you make doing this?
• 56:27
  And I went, well, firstly, that is an incredibly rude question.
• 56:32
  How about you just give me a number and I'll tell you if it's higher or lower?
• 56:36
  And he goes, yeah, you're right. That was really rude. And it's like,
• 56:37
  well, you know, just, there's nothing wrong with calling a rude person rude.
• 56:42
  There's nothing wrong with calling evil person evil. There's nothing wrong with
• 56:44
  calling a nice person nice.
• 56:46
  It is what she is. So you can call people out on that. You can say,
• 56:49
  well, that's not, that's not very kind, but hey, thanks for sharing.
• 56:52
  You know, you can respond in those ways.
• 56:54
  You know josh mentioned some some ways to respond in the past but if i could
• 56:58
  speak to like my most viral comments not comments per se but my most viral videos
• 57:04
  that obviously generate a lot of comments,
• 57:06
  it'll always be something like people trying to figure out how it's done,
• 57:10
  and you know whether they think it's good or not like that's fine but more times
• 57:14
  than not it'll be oh he's got a this and a that, she's an actress,
• 57:22
  that's his girlfriend, you know?
• 57:24
  And I'm like, yo, that's Miss UK at the, you know.
• 57:30
  Oceanic beauty pageant, like if it was lucky man, you know, and,
• 57:37
  and all, you know, all I've seen return to people like that who were just saying,
• 57:40
  like trying to figure it out.
• 57:41
  There's, there's three ways I approach it. I, no matter what they say,
• 57:44
  I go close, close, watch again, you'll figure it out.
• 57:49
  Yeah. Or you can say like, Oh, that's an, that's an interesting method.
• 57:52
  Yeah. That's, that's cool. Yeah.
• 57:54
  That's one way to do it. That could work. Not how I do it. Watch again.
• 57:59
  I just tell them watch again, no matter what they say, it's deny watch again,
• 58:04
  because those dumb asses are just going to up your view count by watching it
• 58:08
  again and again and again, trying to figure it out.
• 58:11
  So my advice is, oh, he puts it under his, and he's got hands from NASA.
• 58:16
  You're like, that's a great idea. And I might try that next time,
• 58:20
  but that's not how I do it.
• 58:21
  Watch again. I'm sure you'll figure it out. You're a clever one.
• 58:23
  I compliment them. Yeah, you'll figure it out. You're a sharp guy.
• 58:26
  You know what you're doing. Or I say, bro, are you asking me or telling me?
• 58:31
  Well, I'm telling you, what are you telling me? I know how it's done.
• 58:35
  You know, I'm asking, you know, a magician can't tell you how it's done. Stupid.
• 58:40
  Yeah. You know, I think, I think to backtrack on Nick with, if somebody rudely
• 58:46
  asked how much you make, cause it is a funny question people they they kind of say it like so like,
• 58:53
  do you make a can you make you can make a living from doing this like they have
• 58:56
  that kind of tone in their voice when they say it so,
• 59:00
  you can do this for a living? Like, as soon as the high pitch at the end comes
• 59:04
  in, I'm like, oh yeah, I see what you're saying.
• 59:06
  Nick, if I was Nick and I can't do this, but I, because I don't own houses,
• 59:10
  but I would just be like, I can't tell you how much I make, but guess how many
• 59:13
  houses I have and I'll tell you if you're right or wrong. Like,
• 59:16
  I would, that's so funny.
• 59:18
  I can't say that. What I say is, I go, I go crazy, right? Can you believe I
• 59:23
  bought three houses doing this shit? It's nuts.
• 59:27
  Yeah. You can always just answer with some gibberish, like, yeah,
• 59:29
  I make $1.380. And they're like, what? And they just walk away. I'm like, what?
• 59:34
  That's funny. Just a non, yeah. I make enough to send the weasels out to the
• 59:39
  farm to cut down the wood to burn the fire and I stay warm. Yeah, yeah. Like, what?
• 59:46
  I do want to point out a comment, Scotty Link, and I think that's probably a
• 59:48
  really great way of handling it when we talk about handling the negative comments
• 59:52
  is just take the high road.
• 59:54
  And I think both of you alluded to that, just taking the high road because it's so easy to,
• 59:59
  slip down that slippery slope and negativity loves company,
• 1:00:04
  and i think that's a great way to kind of put it yeah for certain
• 1:00:07
  yeah to synopsisize it like people write stuff and you know some you know the
• 1:00:11
  moment i started shaving my so before i started shaving my head i used to get
• 1:00:15
  comments saying oh man the hair's thinning the hair's just slowly disappearing or whatever whatever,
• 1:00:20
  and then once i did shave it they're like ah i didn't know johnny sins can do
• 1:00:23
  magic and a lot of you listening to this pretending not to know who that is
• 1:00:28
  it's someone who's bald and so I would just in the comments,
• 1:00:31
  I almost always write something like yeah same haircut different magic wand
• 1:00:35
  and then it's just a funny like I'm in the bit with you I get it it's funny
• 1:00:39
  and whatever and if someone genuinely is trying to be,
• 1:00:43
  hurtful and they put a whole rant at the very end i just all i comment back
• 1:00:49
  to them is thank you for your honesty full stop,
• 1:00:52
  and then like they can't combat that they've accepted that i've read it and
• 1:00:56
  it's not affected me and now that ironically hurts them more because they realize
• 1:01:01
  oh he's bigger than that to not give a damn you know.
• 1:01:06
  Trying to antagonize you but you're like no and again goes back to taking that
• 1:01:09
  high road like yep thanks so much for the comments appreciate it Thanks for the honesty.
• 1:01:13
  It's just grateful. You're grateful. Yeah, but you know, after he did write
• 1:01:17
  that hurtful comment, like we did make Doug sit out on this episode for that
• 1:01:20
  reason. But next week. I knew, I knew I recognized.
• 1:01:24
  There was something that I thought, like, you know what? This seems familiar.
• 1:01:27
  Like, yeah, I got a grudge.
• 1:01:29
  If you watch this, I got a grudge. This is three times, brother.
• 1:01:32
  Three times I've been on this show and you have not shown your face once.
• 1:01:38
  I can't believe that's, that's so funny that the third time you've that oh my
• 1:01:43
  god weren't even here when i interviewed you for this book and but i gave you
• 1:01:47
  a copy of this book and magic live and now you stand me up again dude.
• 1:01:55
  Free strikes and you're out you're out dude you're out,
• 1:01:58
  and that's so funny that's so funny and that's how we end the pod all right
• 1:02:03
  so we're gonna end that by the way obviously,
• 1:02:07
  grab the book vanishing ink penguin habit as well but the the direct link is
• 1:02:11
  in the description of wherever your ear holes are consuming this goodness,
• 1:02:16
  and we can't wait to have eric back for a fourth time or see you at magic live
• 1:02:19
  whatever happens first but we're going to end our episode in the way we always
• 1:02:24
  do which is by giving our guest,
• 1:02:26
  the final word,
• 1:02:32
  that's right folks you you probably can guess what i'm going to talk about but
• 1:02:36
  impact outlasts applause,
• 1:02:39
  you've crafted this great skill set now offer it up to the world that in a way
• 1:02:45
  that has creates a greater impact give it to the people who can love it and
• 1:02:50
  truly desire it and that way
• 1:02:53
  you will last long your name will last longer than any kind of applause because
• 1:02:57
  you've now impacted someone's life.
• 1:02:59
  Thanks so much, everyone. Have a good night.