Latest / The Magic Guys / Secrets, Scams & The Ethics of Magic #278
Transcript
- 0:00They're guys. They do magic. They are the Magic Guys.
- 0:13Hello ladies and gentlemen and welcome to episode 278 of the Magic Guys.
- 0:20I'm Josh Nubito and to my left is Mr Nick K. That's right, I'm Nick K. Welcome to the show.
- 0:28What a banger. You're rocking with the two baldies today. Didn't want to wear
- 0:32a shirt. No, I'm wearing a shirt. Didn't want to wear a hat so I could look
- 0:36as identical as possible to Nick.
- 0:38So it looks like there's two of the same people and then one extra you'll recognize
- 0:44that we'll be on a little bit later when we get into our discussion.
- 0:48But Nick, how are you doing, buddy? Buddy, it's been a big week.
- 0:51Yeah, I had gig after gig, had a university gig last night.
- 0:55Really awesome and they've asked me to come back and do a show for them which is great,
- 1:00because yeah i would like to get into that university circuit i feel like we
- 1:03don't do enough of those or that when they do hire them they hire the wrong
- 1:06guys which i can mention but probably not publicly,
- 1:11this sounds pretty deep matt hollywood moving on so.
- 1:19Okay so you're saying that yeah then they're not hiring someone young and and
- 1:24full of energy no it's you know what it's like when you hide a certain type
- 1:28of people they might send the wrong person misrepresents what magic is supposed to be,
- 1:32like i'd be about so in fact they told me that like we we had a comedian night
- 1:36about x like three or four nights like two weeks ago that was saying and there
- 1:40was like supposed to be four acts and there was supposed to be magician in there
- 1:43the magician decided they weren't going to come it was just like boom so,
- 1:46i don't know who it was but I just said to him like yo if you want some magicians
- 1:49we're going to represent contact me we have an amazing agency we have guys all
- 1:54over Oz more than happy to help so geez what magician just doesn't want to,
- 1:59come to a gig that's crazy.
- 2:02I could think of a few that's not the way to represent but yeah yeah yeah wow
- 2:06all right well god damn it's good to see everyone who has turned up however
- 2:12in the chat I can see gear hunt I can You see David, Scotty Link, the boys, Tim Askin.
- 2:19These guys know how to do it. And some of you were saying in the chat or in
- 2:23the comments, rather, that you're getting jump scared by the air horn because
- 2:30I can get a little trigger happy sometimes, you know.
- 2:32And to most people, I would say, look, just listen to it on Apple Podcast or
- 2:37Spotify because it normally edits out that sound.
- 2:40But just for your viewing pleasure, I've changed a couple of sound effects,
- 2:45so you're going to hear a few different things. So this is the current one that
- 2:48has replaced the air horn.
- 2:52Tell me what you think. I think it still sounds like an exclamation mark.
- 2:55But again, if you listen to this on Spotify, you probably didn't even hear it anyway.
- 2:59But these are the things I'm dealing with, Nick. These bloody thousands of messages
- 3:05that come in every week about the podcast.
- 3:07It's tough being you. No one ever says, hey, great job. They all say,
- 3:10hey, Nick, you look tired. I am.
- 3:15That's because they think we're both Nick. That's why.
- 3:19What up, Pasha? Oh, Pasha came to see Renan.
- 3:22Mccagno as well good show yeah it's great to see uh yeah a good handful of magicians
- 3:30came out to see our international guest perform at the theater of magic last week that was bloody fun,
- 3:36also i can give a shout out to who a guy i've never met before but we all know
- 3:42is a legend is mr shudagawa oh wow we had a couple,
- 3:48so a couple has booked me for their wedding in october and directly correlated
- 3:54to having seen shootagawa,
- 3:57like last year in hawaii at his at his show there they saw his show there they
- 4:03got engaged while in hawaii,
- 4:06and they told me they were so moved by his show,
- 4:10that the card they had selected that night they went and both got matching tattoos
- 4:16of the seven of hearts and they showed me and they have a seven and a heart indice on their forearm,
- 4:23and i was like what,
- 4:25effect did he do that made you want to get the card tattooed on your body and
- 4:31the only way she described it was she's like,
- 4:34he made my ring vanish and then he pulled my ring out of a seven of hearts,
- 4:41and I was like that's quite a sentence and might get that to do as that tattoo as well god damn.
- 4:48What a sentence. He pulled my ring out of a seven of hearts.
- 4:54Do you think he did like a karate card? So like he punctured the card and then
- 4:58the ring was on his finger, do you think?
- 5:01It's either that or he's like actually loaded the ring into the layers of the
- 5:05card so that like you could tear it open and pull it out again.
- 5:10I don't know, but it's something that you don't see or hear about every day,
- 5:13you know? It's a great idea.
- 5:15Yeah. So.
- 5:18So anyway, so they then booked me, but I also gave them tickets to come and
- 5:22see the show and they enjoyed themselves and I'm doing their wedding.
- 5:26But it's all like traced back to the first show they saw doing a good job,
- 5:30which then led to now them wanting to see more and more magic, you know? Mm. Yeah.
- 5:36But so between that and performing at universities, I think we've pretty much got magic covered.
- 5:42So that's awesome. Indeed. And these are well and good. And these are our stories
- 5:46we're currently sharing with you guys. But we also like hearing about your stories,
- 5:49which you can leave on our SpeakPipe service, which is speakpipe.com forward slash themagicguys.
- 5:55We do have a pipe this week. Who's our pipe from?
- 5:58Yeah, buddy. We have a SpeakPipe coming in from our boy, Seth,
- 6:02who I'm sure is in the chat right now.
- 6:04He has a gig story, which I love hearing of you guys out in the trenches.
- 6:08We're going to hear Seth's question. So I have for you guys probably my strangest
- 6:13gig story to date. And I'm curious if anybody has had a similar experience.
- 6:17I'll preface it with, you know, I try to maintain a certain level of professionalism
- 6:21with my magic, as we all should.
- 6:22But anyway, I was booked for a 30-minute magic show at this girl's 35th birthday party at 8 o'clock.
- 6:29You know, I show up. Everybody is super cool. Like, these are my people.
- 6:32I'd never met them before.
- 6:33But like I instantly felt like I was friend you know we were all friends and
- 6:36I end up starting my set at around 8 15 I do my 30 minute set everybody loved it it was great.
- 6:42And I mean just we'll just fast forward to 12 30 I'm in
- 6:46their pool in my boxers just hanging out with everybody having a laugh having
- 6:50a good time you know sipping tequila and passing the bottle around and like
- 6:53they were totally cool with it but I mean I never would have even imagined that I would be,
- 6:58anywhere We're remotely close to that scenario.
- 7:01And yeah, have you guys ever found yourselves in a similar situation? Cheers.
- 7:07Absolutely.
- 7:10Absolutely. Yeah. Oh, your mic's off, Josh. Give us an example, Nick.
- 7:16What can you tell us? Oh, man. I don't know. I'm trying to think of what I can legally say.
- 7:21You do an event and you're wrapped up and they're like, come to us.
- 7:28We're going to go to this wine bar. Do you want to come with?
- 7:30And you go, sure. That sounds like fun.
- 7:34And then you go, and it's on the way home anyway, because I live in that funky,
- 7:36cool part of town and then we're sitting there and i'm sitting with said gentleman
- 7:41and said wife and we're all having a good time and she,
- 7:45runs off and goes for a dance and he and i sitting there and he leans in and
- 7:49says something to the effect of like hey,
- 7:51you're the type of guy i would love to have,
- 7:55nail my wife i'm using polite language and i and i and i said,
- 8:00oh buddy like We're friends.
- 8:02I would never do that. And then he was like, no, look at her.
- 8:06She's like a wild horse. You can't tame that.
- 8:08You can't, Nick. This is what you need to understand about marriage. You need to do this.
- 8:13And I was like, no, thanks. But.
- 8:19You experience crazy things like that. You end up in locations on rooftops doing things.
- 8:27You just, nope. Josh?
- 8:31Well, let me tell you, it was the year of 2022 and this summer.
- 8:38Yeah, look, guests are always going to treat you as their friend and you've
- 8:42just like been the star of the night having performed.
- 8:46So like there's this like artificial sense of brotherhood or camaraderie that,
- 8:52yeah, they can invite you to,
- 8:54they always will say like, oh, you can stay and have a drink with us or,
- 8:58you know, i've had a couple offer me drugs because they're at a wedding and
- 9:02like they're on this they've hired out this whole,
- 9:05estate or whatever like yes they have some drugs i'm like whoa this is,
- 9:11the opposite of what a good time is for me personally i'm good you know you
- 9:15paid me i'm you know i'm good and yeah and you get offers of all kind of things all kinds of things but.
- 9:22You kind of i guess you pick and choose your battles right like you know it's not to say you can't,
- 9:29do anything after you finished an event like we're talking about a private booking
- 9:34or whatever they're all just essentially mates and you might stay a bit longer and,
- 9:38play some some uh home blackjack with them or whatever but but i can't really
- 9:42say i've done i found myself in any really precarious situations like i think
- 9:46also my entire magic career i've been with my partner sandy so I've also never,
- 9:54wanted or needed to hang around to like, you know, entertain females or anything like that,
- 9:59where I know, like, I'm sure entertainers have gotten themselves into situations by,
- 10:06you know, wanting to stay and flirt with the guests and that kind of thing,
- 10:09especially, you know, like cruise ships, they had to make a rule,
- 10:12like performers aren't allowed to sleep with, you know, cruise ship attendees.
- 10:18Stuff like that.
- 10:19So I'm sure it all happens, but no, Seth, I have not found myself in a pool
- 10:23of a female 35th's birthday drinking tequila. So that is a new one, buddy. Yeah.
- 10:30You know, for me, it goes back to what Sean Farquhar said in his Penguin lecture
- 10:35many years ago. And he says that you might not ever be a millionaire being a
- 10:38magician, but you will live like one and you will have these experiences and
- 10:42you will have these stories to tell.
- 10:44And I think that this is, from what Seth said in the comments,
- 10:46that it is the second gig since becoming single. So that was like a big contribution.
- 10:51Okay. It just goes to show that like you are going to experience cool things
- 10:55like this. So yeah. Yeah.
- 10:59You know, a gentleman that probably could tell us a lot about that kind of stuff
- 11:03is, I've noticed, just popped up in the green room. So we're going to welcome him on.
- 11:08Ladies and gentlemen, it is your boy, the man, the myth, the legend blowing up at the moment.
- 11:15Give it up for Adam Axford.
- 11:20What's up, gang? Good to see you. How are you, brother, man?
- 11:25Yeah, life's good, man. And I just had a call with someone over in Mexico.
- 11:29So sorry, I'm a little bit late for this chat.
- 11:31But man, he's a talented guy. I can just see he's got juice just oozing.
- 11:35So I'm excited to see where this guy goes.
- 11:38Oh, was his name ending in Tamariz?
- 11:44It was a Miguel. He was a Miguel. So he was on brand. But yeah,
- 11:48it was good to connect. Good to see you, boys. What did I miss?
- 11:51Dude, you too. we were just talking about we just had a spectator spectator
- 11:56oh my god i'm such a magician we just had a friend in the chat send through a speak pipe of how they,
- 12:02did a gig at a 35th birthday female's birthday and then two hours later was
- 12:07still at their house but now is in the pool
- 12:10half naked drinking tequila and they were asking if we've ever been in those
- 12:14situations after an event where you you socially get into some saucy situations,
- 12:20absolutely yeah can i share one please buckle up everybody.
- 12:27No it wasn't that extreme but essentially i got booked for doing a an event
- 12:31at someone's home and it was in a real nice part of town in sydney a lovely
- 12:34long townhouse and i arrived and it was this guy booked me and he had like seven
- 12:38or eight lads coming over and he,
- 12:42had his girlfriend there he lived with and she was like
- 12:47supermodel 10 out of 10 like
- 12:50just not she's a 10 like no like the actual 10 as in everybody's a five in the
- 12:56middle she was the 10 and anyway her friend arrived too and they kind of were
- 13:00just loosely involved in the show
- 13:02but they had something that they'd been invited to afterwards so when i finished
- 13:06this 45 minute hour long bit with the guys
- 13:09they then had food arriving And then they were like, well, do you want to stick
- 13:12around and come to this thing with us?
- 13:14And I'm like, holy shit, like, sure.
- 13:17So then we ended up driving my car for some of them. They were all drinking. I wasn't drinking.
- 13:22And a couple of vehicles. And we went to this screening for a movie.
- 13:26And the movie was essentially someone went out on a catamaran for the day.
- 13:31And they turned the clip of their four hours into a 30-minute movie,
- 13:36which we all had to sit and watch, which is essentially just dj music and people dancing on the boat.
- 13:42So i think we all became uncomfortably unaware aware of how lame this was but
- 13:47it was this screening event and there was social bits and champagne happening and all of that
- 13:51and then there was another part of the night and a mission and then i started
- 13:54to get a little bit bored so i become a mischievous person when i'm bored because
- 13:58i'm like i want to make fun so i'm like going and doing tricks for randoms but
- 14:02I'm being like really teasy and really pushy and really like
- 14:05just probably a bit too much.
- 14:08Anyway, someone actually reached out from that event the other day asking if
- 14:11I still perform. So it wasn't all bad.
- 14:14Yeah yeah anyway there's a
- 14:16random one but it wasn't naked in a hot tub so i need to level up my game,
- 14:21yeah but you did get a gig out of it so this is it this is it yeah i definitely
- 14:27and a free ticket to this event and stuff like it was
- 14:30sometimes we got a role with adventure because i feel especially as performers
- 14:33we're also like locked into how things need to be and we've got all of our pockets
- 14:36in order and our set list is there and if a trick gets deviated from we you
- 14:40know like maybe we improv but,
- 14:43in our lives i think the real magic comes from just kind of being willing to
- 14:46embrace what happens so being open to just flow with the go and just yeah yeah that's,
- 14:54important stuff that's been your whole life recently like that's what you're
- 14:57experiencing right now like and putting it up online for us to
- 15:00to literally see i know you're gonna have to call me mr 50k in a few minutes
- 15:05we're getting there i was just looking at that wondering if it was going to
- 15:08happen before the podcast.
- 15:12But maybe it's going to happen during that's even maybe no yeah i'm at 49.4
- 15:16i think it's going to be a stretch i don't have any blowing up at the moment
- 15:20but we did have a few like jack bless him he was the biggest hit
- 15:24i approached this for those haven't seen my channel i'm approaching randoms
- 15:27out on the street at the moment and i just kind of capture the approach the
- 15:30trick and in the departure and i got the old
- 15:33uno reverse card on a charity mugger so walking past and he was stopping people
- 15:37for like deaf charity australia or something and i just saw him vibe his energy
- 15:42went straight in for the kill
- 15:43and we've got three million views on it people love him it was incredible and,
- 15:48if you haven't had a video pop like that i can only imagine what it's like for
- 15:51people who get hundreds of millions of views like my friend harrison crane our
- 15:54friend harrison at the moment yeah exactly the the comments and the notifications,
- 16:00your battery is just diminishing in front of you, whilst,
- 16:04the count on your Instagram notifications just maxes at 100 for everything.
- 16:10Ah yeah it feels good but it's a lot dude yeah well i've got a gig today i mean
- 16:17that's all i've got oh no someone's paying you for your art what a shame well i'm unemployed today so.
- 16:27Bloody hell so fellas if i could take point you're probably wondering why i
- 16:30brought you all here today,
- 16:32last week we were talking we had an interview with the amazing reed ferry who's
- 16:36released an amazing product called trident it's a great system in which you're
- 16:39able to decipher a single thought of word,
- 16:42and one of the things that i kind of took away from that as far as the product
- 16:45goes is that it doesn't cross any ethical lines which some mind reading and
- 16:50mentalism does so i got to thinking about it and whilst i was journaling,
- 16:55i started to explore the ethics of magic and how many facets are crossed and
- 17:00in truth i went down a rabbit hole and i got a little carried away so this is kind of a broad,
- 17:06thing to touch upon but i feel like it's something we haven't spoken about and
- 17:10something worth talking about which is why we brought in foremost expert on
- 17:14ethics and mind reading and so forth and mentalism which is why we have adam and of course,
- 17:19us two so um.
- 17:23Let's get into it because today we're talking about something that every magician
- 17:29has whether they know it or not. And it's a line.
- 17:32Okay. It's a point to where we say to ourselves, I'm not comfortable doing that.
- 17:38For some, it's going into a hub tub. For some, it's not, right? Totally get it.
- 17:43For one magician, it might be exposing secrets. For another,
- 17:45maybe it's copying another performer's act.
- 17:48For another magician, it might be to pretend that you're contacting the dead
- 17:52relative of a spectator.
- 17:54But the fascinating thing for me was that some of like none of us draw this
- 17:59line at the exact same place so today isn't about telling you where the line
- 18:04should be it's about asking everyone listening right now,
- 18:08to ask themselves, where do you draw yours? And.
- 18:16In the spirit of that, I think it's worth asking or identifying what are ethics.
- 18:22So let's define what that means before we begin, because ethics aren't laws
- 18:26and ethics aren't rules.
- 18:29Ethics are principles that help us decide what we should do and not what we can do.
- 18:34So I'm going to say it again. Ethics are principles that help us decide what
- 18:37we should do and not what we can do because in magic there's lots of things
- 18:43we can do but the question is should we,
- 18:48so i think this now upon this thought process i want you guys to keep these
- 18:52four things in mind which i
- 18:53was sort of deciphering as the pillars of what i think hold up the ethics,
- 18:58and it's these four things i think you need to ask yourself in each scenario
- 19:02that you're performing in.
- 19:04Number one, who benefits? Number two, who could be harmed?
- 19:10Number three, which is, did the audience consent?
- 19:15And the fourth one is, what belief are they walking away from your performance with?
- 19:23And I think that those four won't answer everything, but I found that those
- 19:27four were the most common threads as i was going through,
- 19:31this realm so before we get into kind of a round one of what i was thinking
- 19:36about uh presenting you guys with some scenarios are we all in agreeance of
- 19:40what that means and ethics mean,
- 19:43yeah i think carl jung says it's like the line between good and bad is down
- 19:48the center of man's heart right
- 19:50so ultimately it's where you sit inside the truth of you and you know,
- 19:55you know, if you've done good or bad, you know, if it's right or wrong. Yeah.
- 19:59And it's kind of like the, the line you have when no one's watching.
- 20:04Right. True. That's a heavy one as well. Yeah. Good point. Very good point.
- 20:09So let's do some easy scenarios just to get the brain flowing.
- 20:12Okay. Just some really quick, easy ones. So like, where do you draw the line?
- 20:15Let's just say that you accidentally flash a trick.
- 20:19Do you, do you acknowledge it that you flashed or do you pretend like it didn't happen?
- 20:24Personally, I'll make note of it Like, I'll make light of it And not pretend
- 20:29like I'm perfect For sure Yeah,
- 20:32if you can't hide it You gotta highlight it, for sure Yeah Yeah,
- 20:38if you can't hide it, highlight it It's a nice way to draw the line If a spectator
- 20:41asks, how do you do that? Like, do you have to tell them?
- 20:45And follow-up question If a child asks you that Do you give them a different answer?
- 20:51Never tell them, huh? Yeah, a lot of the time my answer, which is true,
- 20:56is it's just lots of practice.
- 21:00As a sleight of hand artist, I can say that truthfully because that literally
- 21:04is the answer. I mean, I'm not going to go and break down the diagonal palm
- 21:07shift, but I am going to say it.
- 21:10The bigger picture yeah i like to give a slick response like i had a clip recently
- 21:16where i'd stop two chicks in the street and they're very very attractive we
- 21:19have this lovely short interaction it's kind of it's performing really well
- 21:23lots of gentlemen of culture in the comment section let's say
- 21:26and uh right when i'm leaving she goes
- 21:29yeah yeah we've seen it he's seen it how did you do that and i'm like i did
- 21:33it well and then i just leave and it just smolders and of course that's like
- 21:38we've used lines like that it's nothing true to unique but it was just a precision
- 21:42and a timing other things i'll say is with finesse
- 21:46so it's just like using it as a point of analysis of the quality of the performance
- 21:51as opposed to revealing methods and that fun little switch is unexpected for
- 21:55the person and reminds them to focus on the quality rather than you know how how how but yeah,
- 22:03yeah it's more just aura points really just trying to be cool yeah because Yeah,
- 22:07it's not like, because like if you were to break down an actual method for them, like what,
- 22:14what's, you know, if they actually get the answer they're wanting,
- 22:18they're not going to feel better about that.
- 22:19Like if I go, oh, well, I did a retention vanish and then I did a steal while
- 22:22you weren't looking and, and I have a fake wallet. So that's how I did it.
- 22:26You know, they're going to be like, what the fuck? I don't care.
- 22:32What they're really trying to say is that was really awesome.
- 22:34But they're just saying it like, how did you do that? Like, what they're really
- 22:38saying is, oh my God, that was great.
- 22:40I think this is a quote about cinema. Sorry, just really a brief moment.
- 22:44But it's like how when you're watching a movie, they say the cinema is illusion at 24 frames a second.
- 22:50So it's like you're watching this illusion of movement, illusion of the feeling,
- 22:54the drama, all of this. But,
- 22:56yeah we don't need to go into the mechanics of the camera do we we yeah i mean
- 23:00i'm impressed that you know it's 24 frames a second born in 1985 mate i used
- 23:05to be able to count them back then.
- 23:08Yeah yeah yeah true and now yeah what's annoying is instagram is 30 frames a second,
- 23:14but in australia like a dslr camera will shoot at 25 frames a second but instagram
- 23:18prefers 30 frames or higher so that's something i deal with but an iphone films at 30 frames anyway,
- 23:24what was your next question nick well i was trying to say up the back of your
- 23:28previous point sorry up the back of your previous point was that when a spectator
- 23:31says like i know how you did that and whether they do or don't,
- 23:35like is there a line that you need to correct them is there a line that you need to say,
- 23:40no you didn't you're full of shit like what's that,
- 23:42well that's a different question isn't it i know how you did it is a bit different
- 23:46to how do you do that so sometimes but so they didn't though but they're just saying it,
- 23:51yeah i mean i love doing what i've seen eric do which is and i've heard azzy
- 23:55wind say he does which is you just give them the prop and you're like all right
- 23:58do it and then you let them like cowardly,
- 24:02give it that's nice and like you know people say oh yeah i know how you did
- 24:05that and i'll be like yeah well i know how to throw 33 pointers in a row but
- 24:09try and do it mate like you know it's like
- 24:12sure you're like pulling it off in real time that's the magic too so regardless
- 24:16of someone's understanding of how
- 24:18something works application is something completely different. Yeah. Boom.
- 24:25So those are all well and good, but now that we sort of got a mindset as to
- 24:28how, like, where a line is drawn, which I think there's a correlation between
- 24:33the line being drawn and the ethics, right?
- 24:35But I also think that if we're looking at the next point of contention I had
- 24:39is that performance ethics.
- 24:41So this came to me in a few different questions as I asked myself. So for example,
- 24:48Would you fake, would you fake like, you know, being in trouble to get a stronger ending?
- 24:54Would you pretend something went wrong? Would you use a fake volunteer,
- 24:58a confederate or a real stooge, maybe a secret camera where you cut to a certain
- 25:03type of footage as you do a different thing to fool your audience?
- 25:07These performance ethics, I have a few different examples.
- 25:12Let's just say, let's just use one to, for the sake of discussion where,
- 25:16okay. So like pre-show without telling the audience, is there anything ethical about that?
- 25:22It's a good question. I don't, I mean, personally, I don't think there's anything
- 25:27unethical, but I think the moment an audience can smell that stuff has happened
- 25:33before the show, I think it loses a bit of,
- 25:37substance, maybe. I don't know.
- 25:39Like it's, I think there's something nice about coming out and everything that
- 25:43happens is from this moment onwards.
- 25:45But like, you know, everything we do is stuff they don't know about.
- 25:50So like every method is a thing they don't know of.
- 25:53So pre-showing, which they don't know of, I don't think it's unethical unless
- 25:57it's because you're healing them on stage and you've given them a wheelchair
- 26:02pre-show because they just like struggling to walk, but they can walk.
- 26:06And you're like, oh, here, take this.
- 26:07And then on stage, you say, stand up. You don't need this chair anymore, which I've seen happen.
- 26:12Like that's unethical pre-show.
- 26:16But yeah, it's a bit dicey. But from the mentalist part of you,
- 26:18what do you think, Adam? Like when you see a mentalist perform,
- 26:22are you bummed if you know there was pre-show?
- 26:24Are you less impressed or it doesn't matter? One of my motivations for capturing
- 26:29the whole routine without cuts and edits is like a direct rebellion to Olds Pearl and success.
- 26:35I love Oz, he's awesome, but can I watch his stuff anymore? No,
- 26:38because I'm not seeing what really is. I'm just seeing an aftermath curated
- 26:42through riddled levels of pre-show. And I'm like, ah, I'm just kind of,
- 26:46this is slop for mainstream folk, you know?
- 26:50Yeah like i have bad respect to him everywhere he's like no hey like good lord
- 26:54man he was performing to the president while an assassination attempt was happening
- 26:57like i woke up and looked at twitter and i'm like what's os perlman doing here during this
- 27:01so incredible levels of respect for his success this is not what i'm talking
- 27:05about but then also we got to look at this right it's like as a magician i grew
- 27:09up working in counterfeit
- 27:11as a teenager my dad and i ran the biggest dvd counterfeit operation in uk history
- 27:15at the time and he went to jail for it so ethics have always been very grayed
- 27:18out area for me and like i'm willing to push boundaries and that to
- 27:21achieve what i do and in many ways just like setting counterfeit dvds i'm still
- 27:25setting illusions that people buy into in order to have an experience that they
- 27:29know is not fully authentic
- 27:30so it's the same though what i've understood now is i've repackaged the worst
- 27:35things so i say lying cheating stealing deceiving and piracy
- 27:39those are the things that i operated in lying cheating stealing deceiving and
- 27:43piracy and i've repackaged them into something that gets the best emotions from
- 27:48people so by doing this now the real alchemy is turning lead into gold right so those are the lead
- 27:53behaviors and aspects of our human psyche how can we utilize that to create
- 27:58wonder joy surprise amazement hope so.
- 28:01The ethics there are okay with
- 28:04me because the ends justify the means at times as long as the ends are,
- 28:10outshadowing those means and then people can forgive the pathway to get there
- 28:15because you're like wow this iphone's amazing it took children in a factory
- 28:19to make this holy shit right so,
- 28:22at what point do the ends justify the means.
- 28:27So it's interesting you say that because some of the things that i had with
- 28:30regards to like currently we're talking about pre-show right and,
- 28:33the the chats had a few opinions of it and i just want to share a pasha's one
- 28:37which says no pre-show is fine so as long as you don't do this line We haven't
- 28:42organized anything before, right?
- 28:45So that's an interesting concept.
- 28:49How there is an ethical way to do pre-show. But the other notion is that when
- 28:55we look at the two entities that you, well, you two guys who excel at this particular
- 28:59entity, which is social media,
- 29:02you know, we will do like a thousand takes and post like the best attempt, right?
- 29:07Yeah. There's nothing particularly unethical about that now, is there? Or is there?
- 29:14Like, well, the internet is that anyway. It's just curated versions, right?
- 29:18Which is why people do sort of crave rawness which is why people will watch a story
- 29:24for 30 minutes when people are a live stream or watch a joe rogan podcast you
- 29:29know for four hours because you're going to get like an unedited rawness to it as opposed to,
- 29:34like there was one video i did as a promo for a zoom show and because i had
- 29:38exact scripting and a bunch of tricks that were all set up for the perspective
- 29:41of the camera and things that i had to do with flashing and all this it was
- 29:44only a minute video but i did like 142 of them,
- 29:48in order to get the right one and it came out well in the end but you know it's like,
- 29:53i'm lying i'm lying i can't do all of this shit on demand it's long,
- 29:59but that isn't the point is it like how many times did it take tony hawk to do a 900.
- 30:05Yeah that's that's a good that's a good ass point the more we do those takes
- 30:10the more we would hit in the first go anyway it's like with trick shots like i would,
- 30:16there were some trick shot videos i would do where i would spend like two days like,
- 30:22i would spend not full days but i would spend like i would do an hour session of trying to,
- 30:27get the card to bounce off a rubber band to then land on the in the box which
- 30:31is on my head and like i would just sit down for an hour it wouldn't happen
- 30:34come back later sit down for an hour and it took yeah two days for it to finally land,
- 30:40but then the video i made was showing like all of those fails and then finally
- 30:45getting it at the end so it was like more of a process,
- 30:49video than it than it was like i can do this every time because it would feel
- 30:52weird if i was like look what i can do but boom all the time wow have we broken
- 30:59any laws to achieve your magical moments?
- 31:03No. Well, pickpocketing...
- 31:06Yes. Have I broken any laws like defacing property?
- 31:15I don't think I have yet, no. But look, I like where this is going. This is your new book.
- 31:21How to break laws and alienate people. Yeah. So I did a trick for a little while
- 31:26until it was no longer possible. And it was actually released by a guy called
- 31:30Ryan Shrix, who's a very contentious figure within our community.
- 31:34And he put out an ebook called breach and in true spirit of this someone got
- 31:38me a free version of this ebook so,
- 31:41i i use that and i downloaded this little app that was a qr code reader that
- 31:46was linked to whatsapp and what this effect would enable you to do and oh my god
- 31:51i just got this down pat i could have this synced up in two seconds without
- 31:55anyone realizing as long as i can hold both phones and i would gesture the two
- 31:59right and what would happen is with this one app I would have,
- 32:02I'd have to go into their WhatsApp,
- 32:04go into the settings, and then there was an option for pairing and you'd click
- 32:08it. So it was like three buttons. I could press.
- 32:11And then I would say that the real magic with the phones, we think it's the
- 32:16technology and the way they connect us.
- 32:18And in this motion, I would scan the QR code and get a full copy of their WhatsApp on my phone.
- 32:26And I would have their WhatsApp on this other application that had everything
- 32:30that ever sent and receive and had my ability to send and receive as them.
- 32:36And this is a violation on next level, right?
- 32:40And I did this for a very short amount of time, like two months.
- 32:43And then what actually happened is
- 32:44WhatsApp's privacy updates came through and they would, people would get notifications
- 32:49that a pairing had happened and that notification could come through immediately
- 32:54in an hour, in 15 minutes, tomorrow it would come at some point.
- 32:58So that started flagging and then you just like, okay, this is burned. We can't do this.
- 33:04Did i abuse that ability no but what i did do like i'm not even a person who
- 33:09like go for a partner's phone or anything i'm just like nah like you get what
- 33:12you're looking for you know regardless so you just you have to have those guidelines
- 33:16within yourself but i would.
- 33:19It was so good i would be able to say i want you to find any friends scroll
- 33:22through and have a look and find someone you haven't spoken to and i want you
- 33:25to send let's go to and choose a country,
- 33:28let's go to and choose a country. And then they would do that.
- 33:33And then I would be like, and then I would say, okay, cool. Or imagine you sending
- 33:38that to them. And they would, and I'd be like, did you do it for real or not?
- 33:41And they'd be like, no, I just did it in my imagination.
- 33:44But while they're saying it, I'm typing it for real. And I hit send.
- 33:48So I'd be like, imagine sending him a message saying, let's go to Croatia.
- 33:53And I would be miming, but I'm actually typing it as if I'm miming on my phone to demonstrate.
- 33:58I said, I want you to imagine hitting send, boom, you hit send,
- 34:01boom. Did you do that? Was it just in your imagination? It was just in my station.
- 34:04Open up and they open up and it says, let's go to Croatia from them, sent.
- 34:09So ridiculous, absolutely ridiculous.
- 34:13And of course, afterwards, then I would just leave the group and then immediately
- 34:15log out of the application so I could do it again to the next person
- 34:19but a huge legal issue and one time after a gig at holy moly the classic for
- 34:24those who don't know it's a mini golf indoor arena place like a bar mini golf
- 34:28place and there's lots of magicians working on rotation
- 34:32and i did this effect and the next day i got a call from the boss at holy moly
- 34:37saying hey i don't think it's you i think it's one of our other magicians but.
- 34:41There's this trick and someone was concerned that such and such such and such
- 34:44happened so one of the customers had obviously got the notification about this
- 34:47thing, called up there and was worried about the sensitivity.
- 34:50And then you've got to start thinking, you don't know what people get up to on their phones.
- 34:55Maybe someone's doing something illegal. Maybe they're having an affair.
- 34:58Maybe they're discussing some kind of investment and the thought that someone
- 35:02else has violated that, that's fight behavior right there. That's like unacceptable.
- 35:08So I'm happy I'm no longer doing it but i'm also happy for the lessons accrued
- 35:13during this short spell interesting yeah dang,
- 35:19yeah that's a lawsuit right there isn't it you know that's a real lawsuit yeah.
- 35:25I mean, well done to Ryan for figuring out that loophole to take advantage of
- 35:29for that period of time. But yeah, that's...
- 35:33I think Ryan's plug is on scams on a deeper level and we all get our influences.
- 35:38And I think that he may be plugged into certain networks of like,
- 35:41whether it's credit card fraud or scam and utilizing these concepts to perform
- 35:45in a more ethical way for magic performance. So I applaud that.
- 35:48That's awesome. Like, hell yeah.
- 35:50Not that you want to be maybe fraternizing with those folks,
- 35:53but also that knowledge is out there being used and these loopholes are being
- 35:56exploited we may as well onboard them and do it for positivity instead of for scanning,
- 36:03so how many other avenues are there out there and is that really much different
- 36:07from pretending a coin is over
- 36:09here when it ain't i mean like how do we do those gymnastics in our head.
- 36:14Okay so we're jumping around quite a bit there and i think that to go into the next portion to try and,
- 36:20get a bit of a narrow beam as to what we're looking at So just to synopsisize
- 36:23when we spoke about, I think that with regards to the social media thing,
- 36:26there's nothing wrong with capturing your practice, in my opinion,
- 36:29and then obviously posting the best one. There we go about that.
- 36:33I think the pre-show game, I think Pasha made a good point.
- 36:37But if you really want to be able to do pre-show in that manner,
- 36:41I cannot recommend enough the Trident system with both Josh and I have been tinkering with.
- 36:46Like you could quite literally say them like this word you're thinking of,
- 36:48you did not write down. And that's true because you will be able to decipher
- 36:51what they did think of without writing it down.
- 36:54It added to your arsenal. Just cannot recommend it enough. In fact, I will be doing a...
- 36:59Reviewing it and uploading it, my internet's down at the moment.
- 37:02I'm running everything off my phone. Just as soon as that's all good to go,
- 37:05everything will be uploaded. You guys will know all about that review.
- 37:09So that being said, those two entities, let's go into mentalism as a whole.
- 37:14So this is kind of where it gets spicy. Like you said, people are doing things
- 37:18like they're getting access to your phones.
- 37:20But I think that erroneous of method, it's what's being perceived.
- 37:24Like I said, the question before was, what are they walking away with the interaction with?
- 37:28Are people walking away thinking that you can truly read their minds or that
- 37:32you truly have this intuition that you're psychic or do you just never answer,
- 37:37what they're questioning josh.
- 37:46I look i do it less and less now the older i get the more i enjoy giving a truthful
- 37:53answer that's even if it's a roundabout way to what they're asking,
- 37:58i mean i'll never say i've read your mind like i'm an alien or whatever but,
- 38:03like if i don't want to tell them i'll just say i have no idea like i'm surprised
- 38:06as well you know like i won't be like i could sense the blah blah blah in your aura,
- 38:13but yeah or give you know oh people give away more answers than they realize but i won't let me,
- 38:19Let me narrow this by asking three simple questions regarding mentalism and
- 38:24what you guys think is the ethical way to approach it, okay?
- 38:27So, if someone wants life advice because they believe your abilities are genuine, should you do it?
- 38:35People have asked me silly things like the lottery number or like what horse
- 38:40at a Melbourne Cup gig. Right.
- 38:43Nothing with massive repercussions.
- 38:46Yeah, even that, I mean, the answer is no. You shouldn't give life advice based
- 38:50on they trust you because they think you have these powers.
- 38:53But even again, I'll say like the Melbourne Cup thing, which is a big horse
- 38:58race in Australia, which people bet lots of money on it once a year.
- 39:02They'll ask me like, which horse should I bet money on? and I'll say a horse's
- 39:05name and I'll be like, are you sure? And I'm like, yeah, yeah, for you.
- 39:09Cause what I'm doing is I'm telling a different horse to every person here so
- 39:12that one person will be right and will love me for it. And I'll just make a joke.
- 39:16But yeah, I mean, I don't think we should give life advice, right?
- 39:19Like based off of the powers they think we have. Like I love freaking people out and then not knowing.
- 39:26What is going on with us but yeah people have saw it mate even like in my early
- 39:30days of clips i didn't share it on the line in the end it was one of my earlier
- 39:33bits and then this woman then she asked me and she asked me about
- 39:37like will she finds the man to marry and all of this and she was just asking
- 39:42and then i just had to be a human with her and i'd be like,
- 39:45you know you just need to follow what's true to you and be who you need to be
- 39:49and then that person will find you you know This is just like giving human advice,
- 39:53but I can't claim to be obviously psychic or anything like that.
- 39:58You can be a human. They think you've inspired them in some way.
- 40:01They ask something of you.
- 40:03And if you feel that you've got your shit together enough to actually deliver
- 40:05something positive, then that's a decent thing to do for anyone.
- 40:11Yeah. Yeah, I think that you need to ask yourself as a performer,
- 40:14are you going to be strong enough to handle such an amazing power?
- 40:20Like genuinely. it's like the
- 40:21spider-man great power great responsibility people are going to do this,
- 40:25i just for the past few this week especially there must have just been serendipitous
- 40:30of this podcast but you know i was performing on the friday and this woman kept
- 40:35asking me to tell her future and i don't do that,
- 40:37right for reasons i don't do that and then,
- 40:41at yesterday's university gig there was also a tarot reader there and there
- 40:45was a line for him so i went and worked the line,
- 40:47and everyone's asking me to read their future and and i was like,
- 40:52i don't do that i don't believe in that,
- 40:54but i went yeah i could tell your future and like what i go you're going to choose the two hearts,
- 40:59what do you mean you're going to choose the two hearts and i just kept forcing
- 41:02the two hearts and everyone like what's my future i'm like the two hearts and
- 41:05i just kept forcing two hearts in them
- 41:06in like 40 different forces that i knew you know and everyone was just like
- 41:10ah i'm like that's your future that's as far as i can go i can go for about
- 41:1330 seconds that's about it you know,
- 41:16and, and that was a very nonchalant way of doing it.
- 41:20But that aside, here's another one.
- 41:24If someone asks you to contact their deceased father, their deceased relative, should you do that?
- 41:31Chat feel free to jump in yeah what you do is you you do that but through a
- 41:35sponge ball trick and it's like all right your grandfather is going to represented
- 41:40by this sponge ball in my hand and one in your hand is you.
- 41:46That's funny that's funny wow no man like this is the i think these are the
- 41:52clear dirty sides of that and like.
- 41:55Do we think that all mediums are scamming I don't know.
- 42:02I don't know. And this comes down when someone asks you, is magic real?
- 42:05Oh my God, is this real? Tell me, is magic? Is it actually magic?
- 42:10People want to be like, no, it's all tricks. But then I'm like,
- 42:13hey, I am a mass of sentient atoms made of energy condensed to a vibration that
- 42:19allows the illusion of solids to take place.
- 42:22I am representing this imagery through my retina, through light rays.
- 42:26It's magic, man. We exist. We're connecting, let alone the technology we're
- 42:30using right now to chat across the distance like
- 42:32it's absolutely insane and we wake up every day and we just are another day
- 42:36i just like brush my teeth and go through the motions like
- 42:38like it's miraculous the whole thing that we exist here is beyond no one can
- 42:42explain it we just the best guesses we've got is like god or the simulation
- 42:46theory right it's like we don't have
- 42:48any answers because it is that much of an unexplainable method it is true magic
- 42:53it is purest form and then amongst all of that we want to be yeah but
- 42:56mediums aren't real you can't predict the future I'm like,
- 43:01it's all magic.
- 43:02So there has to be some leakage into the mainframe, but from the mainframe into
- 43:06the, yeah, from the source code into the experience. There's got to be some.
- 43:12Just my two cents that's a great ambitious card presentation by the way.
- 43:19But yeah i mean just quickly what what what is your if you had to guess is it,
- 43:25is it god or is it simulation,
- 43:28what oh man like don't try to sit home kids but like i've had like many experiences
- 43:34with dmt which is like the most profound psychedelic experience you can get
- 43:37and it's also very non-drug-like, dare I say it.
- 43:41So you're sober during the experience. It's a very spiritual and ceremonial practice.
- 43:46And in that, you kind of revealed what reality is made of in some capacity.
- 43:50And I could just be under the influence of some devilish substance for this,
- 43:55or it could be a true glimpse behind the veil. I don't know.
- 43:58But whatever it is, I don't think we've quite nailed it in any of our teachings.
- 44:02The best I can say is the same way that the nose and the ears are receptors
- 44:07for the same body and maybe the nose and the ears aren't aware of each other
- 44:10i am a receptor for the consciousness that is as are you and we feel that we
- 44:14are separate but we are all pulling into the same thing so,
- 44:18i feel that really the illusion is the separation and we are all part of this
- 44:21living sentient organism that is existence itself how we got there yeah i don't
- 44:27think we even need to concern ourselves with it soak it up and be a good one,
- 44:32be a good be a net positive,
- 44:37anyway there's my little offering right there clip it there we go there we go
- 44:42that will help me get this conference at the end of the year.
- 44:47Can i ask an ethic question magicians if you get if a client inquires to three magicians,
- 44:56everyone sends their prices back and then you follow up because you didn't hear
- 45:00about the answer and they're like oh sorry we've gone with such and such,
- 45:05is it ethical for that magician to then still try and get the gig over that
- 45:10magician they've chosen via offering,
- 45:14a a discount or a bigger package for the same fee is that ethical,
- 45:21i think you're kind of grasping at straws at that point i think if you got three
- 45:24fighters in the ring and somebody said that this person's won the fight and
- 45:28you're going to try claw back at it,
- 45:30i mean by all means try claw back at it you know okay i'll give you i'll give
- 45:34you an i'll give you a very specific example of i know of what has happened to someone before so,
- 45:41they've booked a magician right but then the magician that they also inquired
- 45:47to that didn't get back to them gets back to them,
- 45:51and knows this person a little bit and then the client's like oh i wish you'd
- 45:56gotten back to me i've already booked such and such,
- 45:58and then this magician's like oh well just just tell them you've had an emergency
- 46:03and and the party's not happening anymore and you know that way you don't have to tell them,
- 46:09so then they tell that magician that magician gives them their money back and
- 46:13then this other magician does the gig.
- 46:16Okay, that's malicious, I think. And it has happened.
- 46:19And I would rather lose a gig to a client like that, you know, in truth.
- 46:26But yeah, it's, these things can happen.
- 46:30Would I do that? No. Do I think it's a wrong thing to do? Yes.
- 46:33I think anyone who tries to take food out of someone's mouth is pretty bad.
- 46:37That's the best, man. You can't steal from people who are your peers.
- 46:41Any theft is wrong, but if you're going to do it, you need to be a Robin Hood in some capacity.
- 46:45And you know who hasn't scammed at the checkout counter by accident accidentally
- 46:51on purpose you know it's like this is a different war you're going against if
- 46:55it's some bigger entity or something you feel that is a degree of oppression
- 46:59upon the smaller folk but like this is why petty theft and people stealing bikes
- 47:03like irks me so much like i had my bike stolen last year
- 47:07the first time i caught the person i caught the person as they were stealing
- 47:10it i chased them down the road i pushed them off my bike and i physically harmed
- 47:15them so they could not get up and held them down until the police come i've
- 47:18got the cctv footage i felt like a hero
- 47:21but it's like i just like all of the awful crimes upon our fellow people like
- 47:26you can't do that we're all players in this game
- 47:29and this is where we are fortunate to live in a player versus environment space
- 47:34where all of us are just players trying to get ahead and you help each other
- 47:37out against the game of life as opposed to being in a pvp server where
- 47:41you're trying to get ahead in the game but then some other douche is out here
- 47:44trying to nick your bike bro like so it's like.
- 47:48That we need to not tolerate pvp behavior right we're here to elevate.
- 47:55That's what that's happening with the gig there like you can't be coming at
- 47:58your fellow people like this is this is your network,
- 48:01what is it there's a line from a hip-hop song i love it says mama always used
- 48:05to say respect your neighbors because next week we might have to check for favors,
- 48:10and i was like yeah that's it you never know.
- 48:15Yeah well said because i know so many people like i was at magic fest and one
- 48:18particular douchebag magician he knows who he is and we're doing our thing and
- 48:22he was just being such a douche in the highest order
- 48:26and and me i don't know man i just turn the other cheek i'm like yeah man do
- 48:30you and then i'm doing my thing i'm setting up for my show and then all of a
- 48:34sudden he needs something and he's like oh do you have glue and i'm like now
- 48:38you're asking for favors,
- 48:40now like you you've been disrespecting me since the moment i walked in the room and i've not said a thing,
- 48:46and now you ask for favors you know and then again after he asked me for favors
- 48:51three times that day and i bailed him out every single time yeah you know because
- 48:57i'm about it and do you think that he would have,
- 49:00you know figured it out no he didn't he still was disrespectful the next day
- 49:03and the day after and it's like,
- 49:05you know says in the book of titus like disrespect me three times i cut you
- 49:08off that's exactly what i did so nice yeah and i don't have don't have time
- 49:12for him now like it's just like buddy,
- 49:15yeah i'm not interested in giving you work don't come to me when you're struggling
- 49:18for work don't no it's like no no no you don't get to you don't get to do that you know so.
- 49:26So, okay. So we've had the business ethics one. Let me give you one more scenario
- 49:29that I feel we might've missed. And that's that Adam Axford's been booked for an event. He's $2,000.
- 49:36Can you do it for $1,200?
- 49:38You know, like, should you be cut? Like, would you cut another brother's lunch
- 49:41or sister's lunch, you know, to get a gig? Okay.
- 49:46Now I will be very clear in my, I'll give my response. Yeah.
- 49:50Sorry. I'll give my response just to, just to give you some context instead
- 49:52of us getting a bit silly about the answer. And I think that ultimately,
- 49:54if it's like, if Adam quoted two grand, but we don't have two grand.
- 49:58And I said, look, what's your budget? If you go, yeah, Adam's worth every penny.
- 50:01What's your budget? We've only got 1200 bucks.
- 50:04That's your budget. If that's your budget, I'll take it.
- 50:07I think that maybe that would be the only time something like that should flow like that.
- 50:13But ironically, if it was a personal relationship like you and I have,
- 50:16Adam, 100%, I would do that if I knew the magician.
- 50:18But again, I don't take food out of my brother's and sister's mouths. Never have, never will.
- 50:22I will never get a gig over you because I was cheaper. I'll tell you that much, personally.
- 50:28It's an awful feeling dealing with a client. I got the one that popped into
- 50:31my mind and I had this lovely chat with him and we're speaking and I think he
- 50:34won even a lot. It was like $1,700 for some Christmas party or something like
- 50:38that. It might have even been less.
- 50:40And he was then battling against some other people and other performers and then this and that.
- 50:46And, oh, we've got another person in mind, but he's got a booking really close to the time.
- 50:50So it's wherever he can arrive. And I was like, well, bro, like if you book
- 50:53me, I'm just going to be treating your gig with the respect of coming along
- 50:57to that gig. I'm not going to arrive flustered. I'm going to arrive there early.
- 50:59I'm going to spend time with you. I'm not looking at my watch and leave when it's done.
- 51:03You know? Anyway, they didn't go with me in the end. But ultimately,
- 51:07if you've got a price shopper, they're also people you don't really want to work with fully.
- 51:12I remember like Geraint Clark put out a message a while ago and he was like,
- 51:16people book you for three reasons because you're the first, you're the best or you're the cheapest.
- 51:20And, you know, those are three completely different markets.
- 51:23They want you because you're the first one they come across done.
- 51:26You're the best one. You've come recommended by their cousin or they just know
- 51:29you're the best. So it's done. Or you're the cheapest because they just want
- 51:32whatever's cheap and they're going to get the thing.
- 51:34And one of my creative mentors, Chris Doe, he has this idea where he says like,
- 51:39all right, you're wearing glasses. I'm wearing glasses.
- 51:41He said, let's look at this. He said, maybe you get your glasses from like the
- 51:45swap me and they're like $10 and they serve the purpose and they sell many,
- 51:49many cheap things and make a success.
- 51:51He goes, I get my ones. These are thousand dollar glasses. They don't sell many
- 51:55of them, but they're a high quality thing.
- 51:58He said, so I view myself offer my service as a premium luxury item rather than
- 52:03a bulk discount product.
- 52:05And both of those can flourish in this world. You just got to choose which one
- 52:09of those is going to best reflect what you want to be.
- 52:12And then that also involves holding your ground with prices too,
- 52:16right? So that you can have that allure to your performance.
- 52:20Absolutely. I mean, to that point, if you want to be that premium luxury product,
- 52:27I mean, Steve Cohen was talking about in becoming the millionaire's magician
- 52:31perceived as that for his show.
- 52:33He's like, you know, I had to learn a big lesson, which is you'll never get, what does he say?
- 52:39You'll never get the $20,000 gigs if you're not willing to say no to the $2,000
- 52:44gigs. Yeah. Right. It was his example.
- 52:46Like that's wild, but 20 Gs. But.
- 52:50Yeah, I mean, and you also don't want that story of someone who has booked you
- 52:55before for a lower price being at the gig and telling the client they've booked
- 53:01you before for like a quarter of the price.
- 53:03Or whatever or like just that miscommunication going around of,
- 53:07yeah we had him at our fifth birthday party for my kid what you paid three grand
- 53:12to have him for your kid no i paid him four hundred dollars what what do you
- 53:16mean three you know that would just be a weird scenario but i agree with,
- 53:20there's a fat joe line which i've clipped,
- 53:23and used a few times for people like that i wonder if i can
- 53:28find it real quick and share it with you but it's essentially yesterday's price
- 53:31is not today's price and we've got to stick by that sometimes and understand
- 53:37that if people want to support our growth and they're going to be there for that then they gotta,
- 53:41yeah like thank you like david blaine can you imagine the people who paid him
- 53:45a few hundred bucks for a party and then suddenly like you couldn't even afford
- 53:49to sit in the audience you know,
- 53:51you got to respect that and be like hey thank you for supporting my earlier
- 53:54work oh yeah here here we go,
- 53:57why does iPhone, not give you audio. Here we go.
- 54:01If you're a promoter, if you're doing a rap concert, yesterday is twice.
- 54:07It's not today's twice. Ha ha ha ha.
- 54:13That's funny beautiful i mean it's been sampled on songs and stuff but that
- 54:20is the spirit we've got to keep that within ourselves sometimes yeah and that's
- 54:24a great internal thing to have on you to to battle that moment but.
- 54:29For what and for what nick is saying if somebody is shopping around trying to get,
- 54:33that price yeah i'm i'm very much the same i won't discount just to get a gig
- 54:38over someone else like the guys that I do gigs with in Brisbane like we all communicate and
- 54:44I'll just openly say like oh did you get the inquiry for this such and such
- 54:48as well did they book you because I just want to know whether to stop following
- 54:51up you know or like like we're just very open about it and if I know,
- 54:56like my friend Mike Tyler he sent me a screenshot he's like look at this idiot
- 55:01and it's like the inquiry was literally like,
- 55:04Josh Nolbedo quoted us x amount what would your quote be it literally quoted
- 55:10my name not realizing that obviously we know each other yeah and,
- 55:15if i could speak to that for a sec as well like when someone's doing the ring
- 55:18around an age i'll get a call from three or four agencies and i'll just go hey
- 55:23just so you know yeah they're doing the ring around just ask them their budget,
- 55:28just ask them their budget like honestly you know i guess that point i'm just
- 55:31like whatever and what i do what i think ethically is the right thing to do
- 55:35is that agent number one gets my normal price.
- 55:38When the second call comes, I had a hundred bucks. When the third call comes,
- 55:42I had 200 bucks and I propagate that for every time they call.
- 55:46Cause I think that's the right thing to do.
- 55:49And then the word budget too, is so like made up as well. Like budget isn't,
- 55:56how much money they could find in the whole universe if they had to it's just
- 55:59like a number they've given to it you know and so i've definitely had moments where i've quoted my fee,
- 56:07the company i mean this is a great example i did this this trade show and they
- 56:10came back saying oh our budget is only this amount,
- 56:14and i'm like okay well like if that's your budget then,
- 56:18you know you can have me for two days instead of three full days and they're
- 56:22like oh but we need someone for three days and i'm like that's interesting well
- 56:26this is the price for three days and you let me know if you want that,
- 56:30and then somehow they magically found more money yeah and booked me for three days
- 56:35because these places will spend like eight grand on sandwiches and stuff you
- 56:38know it's just like the the things they're spending on these events and then
- 56:41they're out here trying to short the the artist who's doing their authentic
- 56:45thing surviving from doing this and then they'll pay some
- 56:47company putting primo prices on the mass-produced thing you know it's,
- 56:51yeah that's where the ethics come in, Hammy.
- 56:53How are they so willing to stiff the artist? You realize, okay,
- 56:57we're the first ones who get it. You want to listen to our music.
- 57:00You want to enjoy our artwork, buy our fashion, watch our movies, enjoy our magic tricks.
- 57:06But you don't want to download all of it and not pay for any of it.
- 57:10It makes me wonder, Adam, with you personally, I wonder if your mindset's changed.
- 57:15Because I remember when we first ever met up, you seemed to have a mindset of like,
- 57:22not wanting to do much public magic because corporates pay so much to book you
- 57:27and you know these people could just pay 20 bucks to come see me and that's not really
- 57:32my product but now obviously your whole journey is performing for free
- 57:37yeah yeah i think i actually i screwed myself with that mentality for a while
- 57:41and essentially like i mentioned uh the chris doe a couple of times my one of
- 57:45my creative heroes on his call i got a chance to speak on stage with him earlier of the year.
- 57:49And when I got off stage, he said, what would happen if you were that guy all the time?
- 57:54And then I realized that I had been that guy all the time for so much of my
- 57:58life that eventually that turned into bookings and stage performances.
- 58:02And then I started reserving that guy for these paid opportunities.
- 58:07And then when, for whatever reason, those bookings dry up, I realized I don't
- 58:11have the money from the bookings and I don't get to be that guy.
- 58:14And being that guy is what got me there so through this journey for the last
- 58:18it's been exactly three months to the date the 21st of april i began this journey
- 58:22and i've done 169 videos uploaded so far and,
- 58:26ridiculous growth on the channel 10 and a half million views a month on average
- 58:30at the moment and that's going to keep growing,
- 58:32but this is by getting out and being that guy every day and to be honest i've
- 58:36noted such a huge difference in my demeanor my well-being how my attitude is
- 58:40how I'm showing up for people, people who are interested in seeing me and stuff
- 58:44that I haven't wanted to hang out with me for a while.
- 58:46And it's good. It's just like being the main character. We can be the coolest
- 58:50person, the most fascinating person on that stage for 30 minutes,
- 58:5445 minutes, or the five minutes set of a roving act.
- 58:57Carry that energy with you everywhere you go.
- 58:59Be that person and just watch your life transform. So now I'm working on generosity
- 59:04and gratitude. Just give it all away and be thankful for all the positive interactions that come.
- 59:09And I just trust that Carmel will catch up and I'll be fully booked in the next
- 59:12few months. Just got to trust.
- 59:15Or from Facebook payouts, either one.
- 59:19Yes, or from Facebook payouts. Yes. Yeah.
- 59:23Incredible. Indeed, wise words, friends. But this is the thing.
- 59:28This list that I created, we only got through five of the dozen that I'd written
- 59:33down. We are also out of time.
- 59:36We might need to continue this in another episode next week, Ethics Volume 2.
- 59:41If you guys would like to hear that, let us know in the Discord and we'll continue this chat.
- 59:45If you've got some value out of it, please. And if you're a magician and you're
- 59:49not part of the Discord, what are you doing with your life get on board it's
- 59:52a great community we have a lot of good times i will probably jump on from last
- 59:58los angeles i think i land there like first thing in the morning so maybe i'll
- 1:00:02take a nap and then i'll jump on at 6 p.m so we can do,
- 1:00:05the episode so you're going to la with magic live or something what are you
- 1:00:09doing yeah yeah so i'm going to la for a bit i'm gonna catch up with our buddy
- 1:00:13derrick hubb friend of the pod and we're gonna see show at the roosevelt we're
- 1:00:17gonna pop into the castle. We're going to run amok. I'm going to go hiking.
- 1:00:20And then we're going to jump over to Vegas and do Magic Live.
- 1:00:24Beautiful. Incredible.
- 1:00:26I'll be here being jealous. Yeah. Snap. FOMO.
- 1:00:30FOMO Max. Hell yeah. All right, guys. Have a great week. Follow Adam.
- 1:00:33I know you already do, but congratulate him when he hits 50,000 followers in
- 1:00:38a couple of hours. And we'll see you guys.
- 1:00:43Next week. Thanks for listening. It's time for us to disappear now.
- 1:00:51But we'll see you again on the next episode of The Magic Guys.