Dear Reader,

Most people think misdirection is about hiding something.

It isn’t.

The best magicians – leaders – marketers — aren’t tricking you.

They’re directing your attention toward what matters.

If there’s a theme running through this conversation with Brian Brushwood and Roy, it’s this:

People don’t want to be pushed. They want to be understood.

They want to feel like they arrived at the truth on their own, not because somebody cornered them with pressure or clever language.

That’s the line between persuasion and manipulation.

One creates clarity.

The other creates confusion.

Both can use story, rhythm, suggestion, and timing… but only one intends to leave the other person better off.

I’ve seen this in every corner of business — from technicians in a hot attic to owners making seven-figure decisions. The moment people feel safe, the moment they feel seen, they stop bracing and start engaging. They step into the conversation with you instead of defending themselves from you.

That’s not a trick.

It’s marketing – it’s leadership.

And it’s the same reason a story can do what a stack of facts never will. Stories lower the guard. They open the imagination. They remind us that we’re human long before we’re logical. When someone says, “Can you imagine…,” the mind stops fighting and starts exploring. That’s where trust begins.

The danger, of course, is that the same tools can be bent toward selfish ends.

When intent turns inward, persuasion slips into manipulation.

When the goal is to extract instead of invest, you cross the line.

We talk about that line in this episode — how good marketers, good magicians, and good businesspeople all work with the audience, shoulder to shoulder, not above them. The goal isn’t to trap anyone. The goal is to help them see the value that was already there, waiting to be noticed.

And sometimes, that simple act of revelation feels like magic.

This is part 1.

In our next conversation, we dig into the psychology of story — why surprise, tension, and timing keep people hooked, and how the right reveal can change the way they hear you, follow you, and trust you.

Watch/listen above or read below.

Todd Liles: Hey, everyone. Todd Liles here. And welcome to part one of a four-part conversation with magician and storyteller Brian Brushwood and the Wizard of Ads himself, Roy H. Williams. In this first part, we dive into the shared psychology between magicians, conmen, and advertisers. We talk about misdirection, honesty, and how the tools that deceive can also delight, depending upon who is using them and why. It’s one of those conversations that makes you think twice about how much of life is built on illusion and what honesty really looks like in business and in storytelling. You’re gonna enjoy this, so let’s jump in.

Roy, I’ve actually been looking forward to this all week too, ’cause it’s a little bit of a deviation from the norm, but it’s one that I’ve been excited about ’cause I know Brian brings a lot of energy, right? And so do you. It’s gonna be a good time. So, Brian, welcome to the show.

Brian Brushwood: Dude, thank you so much for having me.

Todd Liles: Hey, it’s my pleasure. Roy, as always, thank you for being my amazing co-host.

Roy Williams: Well, thank you.

Todd Liles: Roy always does a great job. So act number one, gentlemen, is gonna be called the art of misdirection. Now you see me, now you don’t. So let’s start with it. Let’s start with attention. Because both in magic as well as in marketing, attention is currency. Brian, every magician has to learn how to direct attention, right? But what I find fascinating is that you’re not really hiding something, per se. You’re actually choosing what people see.

Brian Brushwood: Yeah, well, or at least in magic, there’s a saying, there is no such thing as misdirection. There’s only direction.

Todd Liles: Okay.

Brian Brushwood: And if you’re doing it right, at all times, it feels as though the viewer is of their own accord directing their attention however they see fit. But of course, there’s always going to be one path that’s most interesting at any given time. This is a similar problem to when you’re crafting a video game. Your main character in every video game doesn’t know their lines, doesn’t know their instructions, doesn’t know how the world works. And all of it needs to feel as though they’re the ones who discover it all on their own. That’s why tutorial levels are often disguised as, oh, you have a job. Oh, I’m supposed to report to so-and-so. And along the way, oh, there’s something blocking my way. Well, I figured out to jump over it, and on and on and on.

Likewise, if it is important, you must never say it out loud. If in advertising, if I am telling you what your problem is, I’ve done something wrong. Instead, I need to tell you a bunch of things that you know and agree with and let you get to the part where you’re like, yeah, if I just had a solution for… And guess what, there it is.

Todd Liles: So that’s a new definition, I think, of misdirection. It’s not misdirection, it’s intentional direction.

Roy Williams: I think. I think what we usually say is don’t ever say it. Make the customer say it.

Todd Liles: Okay.

Roy Williams: And so an example is never say we’re honest. Just say something that only an honest person would say. And they go, oh, that’s pretty honest. It’s like most people would never have admitted that.

Brian Brushwood: Do you know what’s funny is I made the mistake because my show was called Scam School and I wanted to open an online store. I needed a different name that was kind of adjacent. So I said Scam Stuff, right? So Scam School would be what you do at the bar. Scam Stuff, what you bring to the bar. Turns out people don’t like the word Scam Stuff on their credit card statement.

Roy Williams: Oh.

Todd Liles: I don’t think they would like Scam School on their credit card statement.

Brian Brushwood: I mean, I think that I learned real quick to say the following magical phrase. The only way you get to call your business Scam Stuff is by being impeccably honest. Now, at this point, I’ve just handed whoever heard those words a job. What is the point of that? Oh, his business is called Scam Stuff. What did he just say? The only way is to be… Therefore, I just figured out myself, he must be impeccably honest.

Roy Williams: Yes. And so, as you say, instead of saying it, make the other person say it. You never want to tell a person what the conclusion is and make them try to agree with it. You want to lead them and let them find that conclusion on their own. Because if you lead them to it and they conclude it on their own, they decided it was the truth. They seized upon it. You never said it, but they came to it. You’ll never take it away from them. They will defend that to their death because it’s something they decided on their own.

Todd Liles: Roy, I’m just imagining if I were to have bought one of Brian’s really cool magic tricks and the wife gets a credit card and goes, honey, what’s this Scam Stuff you’re buying?

Roy Williams: You bought some Scam Stuff. So, Brian, question. Whenever you mention you can’t really misdirect people, I started thinking to myself, and Todd, in your opening, you were talking about magicians and the question of conmen. I’m gonna submit the difference. What’s the difference between a magician and a conman? I would say that a magician, there’s an agreement, unspoken agreement. I’m gonna entertain you by doing things that are actually impossible. Now, we both know they’re impossible, so you’re just blown away by the fact you can’t figure out how I did it.

And so you’re not pretending… Well, you are pretending it’s the truth, but there’s that unspoken thing we both know it’s not. But whenever you do something and you actually want the person to believe that it is the truth, and then you want them to take an action based upon a thing that isn’t true, that’s a conman.

Brian Brushwood: Yes. And I would say that the difference is whether or not you skip town at the end of it. Do you want to hang around afterwards?

Roy Williams: Right.

Brian Brushwood: If you want to hang around afterwards, you probably did a very good magic trick. If you want to skip town, you probably were pulling a con.

Roy Williams: Yes, I would go with that additional qualifier.

Brian Brushwood: Both the conman and the magician take advantage of core gaps in perception, understanding, and in storytelling. And they both use an accelerated crafting of reality, but for different endings. In the case of the magician, when you successfully checkmate someone, they’re left only with a wonderful incongruency between what they know is possible and what they just saw. And that’s wonder, that’s delight, that’s a wonderful and good thing. Whereas the conman, usually the checkmate is, and that’s why I need your money right now. At which point that is when you skip town and get out of Dodge.

Whereas the magician, when you finish, the wonder is so delightful, people always say, do that again. And of course, magicians know, never repeat a trick. Once is a trick, twice is a lesson. So instead, you build on it with more and more value until finally people are standing in their seats or standing out of their seats, giving you an ovation at the end. In the conman, you get as far as that paycheck and you’re out.

And of course, in the difference between good… There’s short-term marketing that’ll get you that one fencing job where you could do a poor job and then skip town. But of course, that’s not the business that any of us want to be in.

Roy Williams: Go ahead.

Todd Liles: Well, you’re all familiar with Bernie Madoff, right?

Roy Williams: Sure.

Todd Liles: So you’re familiar with Bernie Madoff?

Brian Brushwood: Oh, yeah.

Todd Liles: So here’s what’s fascinating about Bernie Madoff. A lot of people don’t know this, but his legitimate business, not the one that he did the scams on, but his legitimate business, his sort of magic trick, was that he figured out the fastest way to do a trade quicker than anyone else could. And it was a legitimate business to the point it was making about $25 million a year in profit legitimately. Plenty of money.

He was a magician. He figured something out. But he was also a greedy bastard. So that greedy bastard side of him said, “Huh, I’ve sort of delighted people with this real product that’s making me real money.” And then he started taking their money for a promise of some sort of outsized return and ended up being one of the greatest pyramid scams of all time. And the crazy thing about it is that he didn’t have to do it. There was literally no fundamental reason. He wasn’t lacking for anything.

At the core of who he was, greed got in the way and we go, “Oh, we’ve got this magician that was delivering something delightful.” It’s like, “Oh, it’s a really neat trick, worth money. I knew what I was exchanging for. I believe you.” So now because I’ve got this confidence, I’m gonna believe in you more and then, oh, crap, I’m dealing with an actual conman who stole everything.

Roy Williams: So here’s my question, in the trades, specifically, what’s the difference between a magician and a conman?

Todd Liles: Oh, boy. Let’s talk about a magician. I’m gonna break that down for you.

Roy Williams: All right. All right.

Todd Liles: Here’s a magician. A magician who has a partner in the act, ’cause sometimes it’s a partner act. A technician can be a beautiful magician. They come in, they know that there’s something wrong, but no one knows what it is. And they use their technical skills and they do a diagnostic. It’s very scientific and it’s very system-based, but by the end of it, the homeowner’s going, “Wow.” Especially when he makes this beautiful repair and they go, “Oh, my gosh, you’ve transformed my house from a hellhole to heaven.” It’s like, “I love you.”

Now, you build that level of trust, and if the magician is a good magician and they did a good job, I’ll see you for the next show. If they’re a conman, then the next show is about to happen. And the next show, this is one of the greatest cons that’s taking place in service right now, is that they are doing acts of illusion, often, by the way, centered around airflow. That’s the big scam now.

Yes, are there legitimate airflow issues? Yes, there absolutely are. But, Roy, they will have you absolutely convinced that your whole system’s about to fall apart and blow up based off airflow, these things that you can’t put your fingers on. So they send in their second magician, their conman, and they close you on something that fundamentally isn’t true. Is it adjacent to the truth? Sure, there’s probably reality that your duct system could be better balanced. There’s probably reality to that. But is it the fundamental reason why your home’s gonna be hot forever and you’re never gonna be cool? Of course not. You were cool a day before this event happened.

So the biggest difference is it’s the same thing that a conman does. He builds confidence in you in some form or fashion, and then he quickly switches to an urgent reason why you gotta act now. Because if you don’t act now, you’re gonna miss out on this and it’s never coming back as another opportunity. And no, don’t call around, because if you call around, they don’t know what I know. It’s Bernie Madoff all again. “I know what only very few people know. No one else knows this. So if you go somewhere else, you’re just gonna be told a lie. So look, let’s do this right now, right now, right now. Don’t think about it. Sign the documents.”

So from what we see, that is a massive con. And it’s also sort of like a pyramid scheme, because it’s not just at the technician or at the salesperson level, it’s at the manager level, it’s at the owner level, and it might be at another set of owners’ levels where everybody all wants the same thing. They just want lots and lots and lots of money. And how quickly can we flip this thing and maybe sell it in two or three years?

Roy Williams: Yeah. And like I said, we’ve all seen it.

Todd Liles: That gets me.

Roy Williams: We’ve seen it done in a lot of businesses. There’s always a line between being so good at what you do that you make it look easy. And that’s a magician. When you’re so good at something that you make it look so easy that other people think they can do it until they try. And it’s like, yeah, they can’t.

But on the other hand, whenever a person says, “Well, I don’t want to really be good and make it look easy. I really want to be deceitful and get paid for delivering no value. Just tell a good story and walk away with a bunch of money.” And so the skill set kind of on the surface is the same. It’s kind of like you tell something, people agree with you, and then you deliver what you said.

But I think I’m getting a better understanding of what you said when you said, “And at the end of the trick, do they leave town or are they gonna hang around to solve whatever problem you have in the future?” It’s like, yeah, I wonder how long did Bernie steal people’s money before it finally came down on his head?

Todd Liles: I’d have to look, but I want to think it was like almost 10 years. Yeah, it was a very long time. Because, I mean, think about the con. “Don’t take your money out right now. We’re about to have this huge surge in the market. You’re gonna want to take it out later. In fact, it’s a little bit down right now. Maybe you want to put some more money in.”

Brian Brushwood: Well, if you’re doing it right, that sounds like a poor conman. Not to critique another fellow scamster, but…

Todd Liles: I haven’t thoroughly researched this con.

Brian Brushwood: No, no. If you do it right, then you should show up with the cash on time, but you should craft… And again, I’m giving advice on how to be a conman here. You should show up with the cash, and they should say, “No, no, no, no, let it ride. I just wanted to make sure you’re good for it.” “Okay.” And then that… It’s all of the hallmarks. I think a lot about the Two and a Half Men episode.

Todd Liles: Oh, I don’t know that one.

Brian Brushwood: You know, there’s Charlie Sheen and then there’s his brother who’s the chiropractor.

Todd Liles: Yep.

Brian Brushwood: So he gets his mom to invest into his chiropractic expansion. He’s gonna do this great advertisement scheme, and then he talks Charlie into investing. So he takes $200 of Charlie’s money and puts it into the thousand his mom gave him and brings it to his mom, says, “Here, mom, I’ve got your money back.” And she goes, “Wait a minute, there’s an extra $200.” He goes, “Yeah, yeah, that’s your share.” And he starts to walk out. She goes, “Wait a second.” He kind of smiles, and she’s like, “Yes, mom?” She goes, “I want to put in $2,000 more.” So he keeps this kind of con going between his mom and his brother.

Well, and again, think about what you just described. You described a situation where it was her idea to double down on it. And I think a lot about what Roy…

Todd Liles: Good point.

Brian Brushwood: When Roy gets feisty, it’s oftentimes about fakers who are obsessed with the trappings of authentic storytelling and of authentic good marketing practices, usually in the form of metrics or charts or graphs or short-term returns on investment. That is also that glammer… And by which I mean G-L-A-M-M-E-R, glammer in the magic sense, that false presentation of reality. A lot of, as Roy calls them, twitchy little bastards can hide in that. And that is the same domain as the magician and the conman.

Todd Liles: So I have a question for both of you. Either of you can answer or both of you can answer. There’s something happening psychologically, and I don’t know, maybe you know, maybe you don’t, but there’s something happens psychologically when people start going with it, when they’re giving over their focus and you’re beginning to take control over them.

Roy Williams: Right.

Todd Liles: So can either of you speak to what’s going on in the mind? Like why would a person begin to release this level of autonomy to someone else? Because there has to be somewhere along the way there has to be a reason.

Roy Williams: I have an answer, but Brian’s will be way more interesting.

Todd Liles: Let’s hear it.

Brian Brushwood: Yeah, it’s the secret of all stage hypnosis, right? So stage hypnosis, is hypnosis real? On the one hand, there’s no such thing as hypnosis. There is flow state. And if you’ve ever sat down to start editing a video and suddenly the sun rose, or if you sat down to watch a movie, you’re laughing and crying at situations that never happened and people who never existed. These are all forms of self-hypnosis.

When you go to a stage hypnotist show who’s there to entertain you, what’s the first thing he does? He comes in and he sets the ground rules. Only a smart person can be hypnotized. Right? Okay, well, I self-identify as a smart person. Who here would like to be hypnotized? 40 hands go up. They go running up there to the front of the stage. And they just got a workout. They just did a 50-yard sprint. They’re under the hot lights. And the hypnotist says, “I want you to imagine that you’re terribly hot. What must that feel like?” And now, of course, you just did a sprint, you’re under the hot lights, you are sweating. You’re like, “Well, that’s pretty easy to do.”

And he’s like, “Now you’re cold.” Now, notice he changed the language slightly. He doesn’t say you’re imagining to be cold. He says, “Now you’re cold.” Oh, I get it. I was hot, now I’m cold. Okay, great. “And sleep.” Now you know what he means is imagine you’re going into a slumber. And through this rhythm, you begin to associate a sense of trust and safety. You begin to enter that flow state. You begin to at a core level, not an upstairs Vulcan mind, but at your McCoy mind down below, you start to realize, “This guy tells me what to do and I do it, and everybody laughs and claps for me.”

And eventually, 43 minutes into the show, and you, out of the corner of your eye, you see people get eliminated. Now, he doesn’t call it eliminated. He says, “Person I’m touching on the shoulder, it didn’t work out. Person I touched on the shoulder, now you’ve forgotten the number eight.” So they pretend to or they don’t know the number eight. Everybody laughs. And then finally, hand on your shoulder, “You are Britney Spears.” And there, standing alone on the stage, you have a decision to make. You can crawl all the way out of your introverted hole and say, “You know what? This has been a lot of fun. I’m outside of my comfort zone. I’m gonna go have a seat.” Or you could do the easier thing, which is be Britney Spears. And everybody claps and everything goes great.

That sense of rhythm, this is the same structure that you see in negotiation tactics. It’s the same thing you see on stage. It’s the same thing you see in the art of seduction, pickup artists. This is part of the problem. There are various iterations. It’s all the same structure, but just some are used for good means and some are for bad.

Todd Liles: I’ll tell you what, I want to hear your thought, but I want to add to this. Something that is occurring to me right now is that when we are teaching technicians how to go through the questioning and answering process on the front side of things, I teach them what I refer to as the magic questioning technique. And never connected it to magic. I just thought it sounded neat. But whether they’re a plumber or an air conditioning tech or what have you, I tell the technicians, “When you get there, do not start immediately operating the faucet or the thermostat or whatnot.”

Now, the reason why I tell them to do that isn’t for that reason. It’s because I know as soon as they touch it, their muscle memory kicks in and they’re now going to fix it, and they haven’t talked about important things that we need to talk about yet. But this is what I tell them, and it’s sort of bringing a parallel, and I’m thinking about this now, is that if I was your technician and I went to your house and you were telling me that your air conditioning system wasn’t working properly, I’d say, “Oh, tell me more about that.” After you spoke a few moments, I’d say, “Brian, do me a favor. Take me over to your thermostat, please.” And you take me over to the thermostat and I say, “Brian, what I’d like you to do is I’d like you to just put it in the position that you like.”

So I have the homeowner move it. We teach the technicians, have the homeowner move it. And the reason why I have the homeowner do it is what I just told you. I don’t want the technician touching it. If they touch it, they’re taking it apart and they’re straight into muscle memory mode and they haven’t covered pricing or anything. And then we go over questions. And one of the questions, and I do this on purpose, but I guess it’s part of the magic act because it’s never been manipulative, is that I know I need to get them thinking.

I’ll go, “Look, I know your system’s not working now, but I want you to imagine a year or two ago when it worked perfectly. What was it that you liked about it then? Now imagine the last couple of years. Tell me what’s been going on and what you don’t like about it.” So I have them reliving those moments. And if I do that and I do that well, I know I’ve got control of that call and it’s gonna go smooth for the rest of the call. And I’m doing the same thing, I didn’t even realize I was doing the same thing, I’m conditioning them.

Brian Brushwood: Well, and that’s one of those things where, are you being manipulative? Are you being misdirecting? Are you being directing? Or are you…

Todd Liles: I’m doing it because I know it’s gonna be good for their outcome.

Brian Brushwood: Exactly, right?

Todd Liles: Yeah. But unlike a conman, what we will do in the beginning is we will say, “Expect these price ranges.” We don’t say that as…

Brian Brushwood: The original question, when I said we both have an answer but his will be more interesting. What was the original question?

Todd Liles: The original question was, what’s happened psychologically when you’re beginning to take control of someone’s focus?

Roy Williams: Okay, in my world, it’s super easy. Okay? You said the magic phrase or the magic solution…

Todd Liles: The magic question.

Roy Williams: Magic question. Magic question. The magic words whenever you’re trying to get somebody to shift from their logical mind and just go with you is “once upon a time.” And whenever you frame it, it’s like, now, this isn’t factual, but when you say, “Imagine this,” or, “Can you imagine?” And I did it when I walked in the door and you said you had played the story that I sent you for Alex. Well, it’s actually called “Way Back in the Long Ago.” Now, “Way Back in the Long Ago” is just a clever way of saying “once upon a time.”

And so whenever I begin “Way Back in the Long Ago,” and then if all the words I use and all the language I use are non-specific but they feel specific… So I’m not giving you any information that you could possibly disagree with. You’re knowing, “Oh, this is a story. This is a story. This is not fact. He’s just taking me on a journey.” And you will always find people ready to go on a journey if what you’re saying is interesting. You just have to figure out how do you trigger in a phrase, “We’re not talking about truth, we’re not talking about facts, there’s nothing to doubt, we’re just having a nice time. Way back in the long ago.”

And then they go, “Oh, what happened way back in the long ago?” And so that’s how you can create a willing suspension of disbelief. A willing, voluntary suspension of doubt, suspension of disbelief. And so it’s part of framing. When you frame the conversation in that opening qualifying statement, that phrase that you use to let people know, “Is this factual? Is this incontrovertible? Am I willing to debate this? Or are we just clowning around?”

Brian Brushwood: If somebody is uncomfortable with the role of storyteller, I’ve found that you can always ask a question, “Do you have 30 seconds for a quick story?”

Roy Williams: Oh, yeah.

Brian Brushwood: I just did it. I just got your permission to frame. Whether I consider myself a storyteller or not, we know this is going to be, we’ve set the boundary of it.

Roy Williams: Oh, I read something today in the random quotes. There’s 8,000 random quotes, and every time I log on, one pops up. Long after they forget your bullet points, they will remember the stories you told.

Todd Liles: No question.

Roy Williams: Long after they forget your bullet points, they will remember the stories you told. And so the idea of having… If every technician had eight stories, and they’re all true, and one of these eight stories is gonna be appropriate for any situation, it’s like, what situation am I in? Oh, that would be story four. And they tell story four, and they’re good at telling story number four, and it’s true, it’s always been true, but it illustrates something that this person now needs to make a decision about. And so they’re not in the story, but the circumstances are like their circumstances, but it’s a story about someone else.

Todd Liles: Yeah, we talk to our guys about this when we’re training on how to be trainers. And I’m always like, guys, if you will tell a story, you will get their attention. And then if you will tell an analogy, you’ll have their understanding. ‘Cause analogies bridge those gaps. They take me from going, “I don’t understand this,” to, “Oh, you’re a schoolteacher, right?” “Yeah. Yeah.” “Well, let me share what this is like when it comes to what’s happening in your classroom.” They’re ready to go. You’re now ready to bridge that level of education. Now, Roy, I want to show you this. Look at this question that I wrote down, and I’m gonna read it for the audience.

Roy Williams: Oh, wow, that’s awesome.

Todd Liles: Roy and I do this all the time, Brian. We’re just jamming. And this question is, do you think audiences want to be led as long as the journey pays off? And he literally used the word… It’s really creepy because I don’t write these with him, but we’re always moving in the same direction.

Roy Williams: But, yeah, we’re… You know the expression “brother from another mother.”

Brian Brushwood: Mm-hmm.

Roy Williams: Todd and I, very often we’ll be in the same place at the same time, and neither one of us has ever been there before. You know what I mean?

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Brian Brushwood: Yeah. Well, that’s right. I remember hearing one of these stories.

Roy Williams: Yeah.

Brian Brushwood: Kind of spooky.

Todd Liles: It is. It’s really cool, though. So the question… Roy brought it up and he’s already addressed it, so I’ll lead it to you. Are audiences okay with being led, being taken on the journey, as long as it pays off?

Brian Brushwood: I’m less concerned about whether or not they’re okay with being led, and I’m more concerned about whether or not they think they’re being led, whether or not they feel like they’re being led.

Todd Liles: You don’t want them to feel that way. Got it.

Brian Brushwood: They definitely don’t like to feel like they’re being led. But then again, when I headlined for several years at Halloween Horror Nights at Universal, and I went to a lot of theme parks, and my goodness, are those master classes of letting people feel like they discovered everything on their own. I will never forget the time that I made the decision to take my fish and chips to go sit in this little pavilion over in the corner in England at Epcot, and I just happened to be there as the Beatles walked on stage and started playing. It was so great for me that I happened to choose to be there. Now, of course, it’s hard to walk 10 feet and not have something magical happen, but I will always remember that because it felt like I was not being led.

Todd Liles: Well, family and I just got back from Disney. We went to Disney, we went to Epcot, we went to Animal Kingdom, Hollywood Studios, all those things. And we’ve been lucky enough to go several times. We plan it intentionally when we know it’s gonna be slow. And there’s something that’s very interesting that happens when you go to Disney when it’s very light. I mean, very light to the point where you look over there and you see people not shoulder to shoulder, which is part of the illusion begins to reveal itself.

So one of the things that they do is they have lots and lots of intentional blind corners, lots and lots of pathways where they’ll put beautiful decorations. And they do it so you find yourself meandering. It’s also a way of controlling the flow of traffic. But when there’s no one there and you can go, “Oh, I can actually see because there’s not people in the way,” you would never take that path. But when there’s lots of people there, you take the path and you’re like, “Oh, cool, I’m on a new path.” And all it did was it just took five more minutes to get to where you’re going. But you can tell from day one they knew it, because that’s been there for 50 years. They designed those magic tricks from day one, and they still work perfectly.

Brian Brushwood: Another thing I like about this example is it encourages everybody to think about communication through nonverbal modalities. Very little of a theme park experience is the story told with words. So much more. We exist in more than Broca’s area, right? If you’re using a lot of words, you may be technically right, which is the worst type of right to be. They must feel it in their guts.

Todd Liles: So that leads me to my other question. So when you design a trick, and then I’m gonna ask when you design an ad, how do you decide what the audience should notice first?

Brian Brushwood: Usually, here’s how I write episodes of Scam School, Scam Nation. Start with a book that’s 100 years old. I want nobody alive to have invented this idea. Usually it’ll be like, I don’t know, something about “take three cummerbunds from gentlemen,” and I’m like, nobody has cummerbunds. How do I do this with napkins? Great. And then you reduce it to, oh, here’s the black box that nobody’s thinking of. They don’t realize that when you loop it this way, it looks like this kind of knot. Technically, it’s another kind of knot. Great.

So work backwards. There’s a moment when they feel like the two napkins penetrated through each other. What happened before it? Why are they holding this? Why are they tied? Why, why, why? And you go all the way back. And then eventually, at the very beginning, it gets really loosey-goosey. And then you could kind of just figure out in the moment. For example, I may sit down, and I’ve done this with Roy, where we’re just talking, and I maybe have three or four different tricks that we could end up pulling off. And I know I’ve already glanced around, I already know what’s where, and then I wait to see what’s important to Roy.

There’s nothing more important than getting the other person talking about themselves. I pay attention to two things, verb tense and pronouns. If they’re saying the word “I,” I’m happy. If I’m saying the word “I,” I’m screwing up. So I make sure they’re saying the word “I” a lot. If their face is frowning, usually they’re talking about the past. If their face is happy, it’s usually them thinking about the future. Great. I want them “I” and in the future. And along the way, they’re going to mention all the different things, and each one of those I’m just gonna note, note, note, note, note.

And whichever ones are important to them become the initial framework that leads to a narrative that brings us ever closer to the moment of my domain, which is, “Oh, you know what it reminds me of? Here, take this napkin. You ever fold it this way, that way? Here, you fold yours. Fold it. Now put them both. Now pull them apart.” And now they penetrated, and genuine magic happened. Now, I knew where we were going to end. I did not know where we were going to begin. And I think for a lot of folks, whether when it’s fulfillment, the performance of fulfillment of the service, or the performance of the audition of a service in advertising, you must begin not knowing where you’re going to begin, but knowing where you’re going to end.

Roy Williams: I only this moment realized the one defining characteristic that’s different between my business and yours. You’re describing about having access to a person and getting information from them. When you’re writing ads for media, you’re sitting in a room by yourself, and you can imagine people, but there’s no one there to read. And so you have to talk very, very, very specifically to every person.

And what happens is, the more specifically that you describe an experience, you can cause people to remember things that never actually happened. You describe it so vividly, they go, “Oh yeah, that happened to me one time.” As a matter of fact, the very best, this has probably been 25 years ago now, it’s a really old thing, but… I was reading about it, and it was whenever Disney World sent, well, there’s this packet, and if you just got back from Disney World, they got this packet, and they said, “Hey, we want you to test these ads.” And so these are some magazine ads we’re thinking about putting in some magazines, and just tell us which ads you like best, but first read all the ads.

And what they did, it was with Disney’s cooperation, but it wasn’t them doing it. It was actually a research thing. And they were describing Main Street USA in this magazine ad. It’s a full-page thing. You pull it out and you’re reading about it. And the most vivid thing, remember, this is all about vivid, vivid imagery, and they were describing when the kids got to see Bugs Bunny and the Road Runner and the Coyote on Main Street USA. And what then what happened is, which ads did you like the best? Or marking which ads they liked the best. And then it said, “And then what was some of your favorite moments?” And they said it was staggering because the ad was so well written, how many people just got back from Walt Disney World, and they were talking about meeting Bugs Bunny on Main Street USA, which, as you know, is impossible.

Todd Liles: Right.

Roy Williams: Because that’s a Hanna-Barbera character, and Hanna-Barbera characters will never be on a Disney stage. And so I remember thinking they were just researching how easy is it to implant false memories. False memories.

Brian Brushwood: Hold on. I just realized you were Mandela Effecting me. I think it’s Warner Brothers is Wile E. Coyote and Bugs Bunny.

Roy Williams: I’m sure you’re right.

Brian Brushwood: I was just like, wait, is he doing a thing?

Roy Williams: The point being, I was sitting here, I’m so jealous. I’m going, man, it would be awesome if I could actually see the people I’m talking to and then tailor my message to their reactions. And I’m going, yeah, Brian is live, so if he screws up, he’s under the spotlights and just has to eat it. I just have to edit it. It’s like nobody ever sees me.

Brian Brushwood: I’ll tell you what, man, it took years for me to really trust the edit. There were entire shoots of Scam School that I thought, “This is an abject disaster.” And then that 15-minute disaster edits down to three minutes of, “Oh, that was cute.” Just nobody needs to see the misses. It’s the Texas sharpshooter fallacy. You walk up, shoot the side of a barn, and then walk over and draw a target.

Roy Williams: But some of your favorite episodes are where something screws up and you just fall apart in genuine hysterical laughter.

Brian Brushwood: Oh, yes.

Roy Williams: And you can’t fake that. Because I’m sitting here going, so some of your best are the fails. And it’s kind of like, that didn’t work out at all, and then everybody’s laughing so hard they’re crying and they’re weeping. And then you’re the audience and you’re laughing your butt off saying, “I love these guys.” Why? Because they suck as magicians today. It’s like they messed up the trick and now we’re all just cracking up. And so pulling people with you in whatever experience you’re having is part of magic.

Todd Liles: And what’s interesting is act number two is the shared experience of wonder, which is what we’re talking about.

Roy Williams: There we go.

Todd Liles: So, Brian, how do you design that sense of partnership with your audience? Or do you? Well, sometimes you answer the question sort of counter to what I’m thinking, so now I’m curious if you’re even trying to go for a sense of partnership.

Brian Brushwood: Well, the image that pops into my mind is a friend of mine, Apollo Robbins, is a gifted pickpocket, and he did a very famous TED Talk where he talks about the experience of being at a party. The moment somebody finds out he’s a pickpocket, they’re like, “Pick my pocket.” And of course, he knows that face-to-face, that’s too difficult a chess match. It’s too uphill for him to get these fingers into that coat pocket. So he says, “Yes, absolutely. If you don’t mind, I do have a quick question. I have a gig right after this. Which way is Tierney’s Pub?” And now, we’re standing shoulder to shoulder. Right. That is the most important key is figure out how to stand shoulder to shoulder with your audience, whether this is in real time on stage with a magic trick or whether it’s in the…

Roy Williams: This would be a training manual. You gotta stand shoulder to shoulder physically or relationally.

Brian Brushwood: Well, because that’s what happens in a radio ad is nobody is driving along hoping that Roy Williams will interrupt them with a story. So Roy immediately has a few seconds to get them shoulder to shoulder. And that could be by asking a poignant question. “Where were you when you first felt this?” And all of a sudden, they can’t help, they’re thinking about that. And there’s Roy standing shoulder to shoulder with them. And on a journey they go for 30 seconds, ending with the cue.

Roy Williams: Example of being shoulder to shoulder. Different clients have different needs. I have a friend who owns an astounding gun shop of collectible firearms. He says like 5% of the people are hunters, 5% are home security people, they just wanna be able to repel an invader. 90% of them just collect guns. So how many guns does a gun collector collect if they collect guns? He goes, “Always just want one more.”

And then I said, “You collect guns?” He goes, “Oh, no, I inherited the business.” “So what do you collect?” And he said, “Rolexes.” I said, “How many do you have?” “72.” It does not take 72 watches to know what time it is. So, yeah, that’s a collector. And so I said, let’s set aside for a minute gun collectors that just want one more. There are infinite numbers of people who don’t like guns, would never have a gun. So if you’re gonna stand shoulder to shoulder with somebody that doesn’t like guns and doesn’t approve of guns, you begin by giving them a statement they can agree with, okay? Nobody wants a gun, or nobody wishes they had a gun until they wish they had a gun.

Todd Liles: Huh.

Roy Williams: Nobody wishes they had a gun until they wish they had a gun. And to sow that seed of doubt, it’s like, no, of course not. I can’t imagine being in a situation where I would wish I had a gun. Well, when you’re in that situation, it’s too late to get one. As Todd and I have been talking about a lot lately, when you’re ready to sell your business, it’s too late to get ready to sell your business.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: And so nobody wishes they had a gun until they wish they had a gun. And so that idea of identify with the position opposite of yours and then reframe it to make people realize, oh, there is a moment when I would maybe change my mind in a different circumstance. And if you can do that gently enough so that you don’t argue with them, but you just allow them to go, “Ah, I see your point. I could come to that side. I could come to your side maybe in a certain moment.”

Brian Brushwood: I once heard this form of argumentation called the Bruce Lee method, where let’s say somebody disagrees with you, they say something that you know is patently false, right? Then first words out of your mouth are, “I hear you. I used to think the same thing, but then I learned this.” Right? Be like water. Never try to meet force with force. Try to get shoulder to shoulder as soon as possible.

Roy Williams: Hmm.

Todd Liles: So I want to talk to you guys about emotions. And I’m not talking about your audience’s emotion, I’m talking about yours. Because we’ve had a couple clients that I’ve invited them, like, “Hey, why don’t you come in, spend a day with me?” Once a client that did a lot of business with us last year, and he went to an event, and the event did a couple of things. One is that it polarized him to go, “Well, I like that guy, but that’s not the way I want to do business.” So he picked up the phone, called us. I said, “Well, come sit with us.”

And I knew what the emotional outcome was that I was looking for at the end. It’s a feeling, right? It’s when I’ve sat toe to toe, belly to belly, side to side, whatever, with a client, and they come and they spend a day, I know at the end that what I want them to feel is safe and secure and that I have their best intention in mind, to the point that I would disadvantage myself for them. Because that’s true. That’s who I am. I would disadvantage myself to someone else’s benefit. I’ve done that numerous times.

Both of these clients that came in, I had that feeling, they had that feeling. They’re gonna do a lot of stuff with us next year. I feel like that was a good magic trick. And I know I’ll have to keep earning that trust nonstop. So for me, the feeling that I get when I walk away from that is it’s the type of feeling I can go home and tell my son and my daughter. I’m like, let me tell you about this awesome experience. We mapped out what was best for them. They knew it, we knew it. We agreed to do something that’s gonna be really good. That feels great. I want to ask you both, what’s the feeling that you personally are looking for when a trick or an ad lands perfectly?

Brian Brushwood: Subjectively, I look for, was this earned applause? Do I feel good accepting this applause? A lot of people, I think of it as harvesting before they planted. They walk out on stage, somebody introduces them, and they, in their mind, they’re getting the audience energized. When they walk out on stage and say, “Let’s go! Get up! Give ’em energy!” or whatever, I’m just like, I bet that feels really good to them, but to me, all of that is unearned applause. And instead, I would rather start small and let authenticity reign supreme.

Todd Liles: Right. Right. What about you?

Roy Williams: No, mine is weird. You gave me lots of time to think about it while you guys were talking. I was thinking about two different situations and then I said, okay, so both those make me feel good. What do they have in common? And what they had in common was when the person got exactly, exactly what they were hoping to get, even if it’s something different than they were anticipating.

And so, here’s an example. I like to begin a consulting session when we’re getting to know each other and spending a day, and I’ll say, “Okay, if you get everything that you came here for and you feel like, ‘Wow, I got everything I was hoping for,’ what is that exactly? Let me write down on the board everything you’re hoping to go home with.” And I’ll just say, “Can you think of anything else? Can you think of anything else? Can you think of anything else?” And when they finally say, “I can’t think of anything else,” and then I say, “Well, can any of the rest of you think of anything?” Because this is gonna be pretty easy.

And then whenever I go down the board, when I answer the questions as asked and I’m thinking about what they want, whether or not that actually fits what I do is irrelevant. And the number of times that a person says, well, I had a guy literally show up in my office. He’s in one of the top 10 largest cities in America. He said, “I’m gonna spend a million dollars on radio advertising next year, and I hear you guys are the best in the world at writing radio ads.”

And I said, “Well, what are you trying to accomplish with this radio advertising?” I said, “Tell me how you’re gonna measure the success. How you’re gonna measure whether or not this was the right way to spend a million dollars.” He goes, “Well, I know it is. I know it is. We need to talk about the nuts and bolts of how to do this.” And I said, “No. No.” I said, “I don’t know nearly enough to have an intelligent conversation about what to do. Tell me what you’re trying to accomplish.”

Then he told me what he was trying to accomplish and I’m going, “Yeah, radio’s not gonna do that. There’s zero chance radio’s gonna do that.” And he goes, “What? Million dollars isn’t gonna do that?” I said, “No. There’s no possible way that’s gonna work. It’s literally impossible.” And he goes, “Never thought about that.” And I said, “Now, I’m gonna tell you, instead of spending a million dollars next year, I’m gonna tell you to spend $150,000, not one penny of which comes to me. You’re gonna walk out this door and we’re gonna be friends, and hopefully you got what you came for. But I’m gonna tell you how to spend $150,000 somewhere else that will get you way more than you were hoping to get for the million.” ‘Cause the million will get you zero. And I know what you’re hoping to get from that million. Let me tell you how to actually get it. And I told him what I learned from you. And I will leave it at that.

Brian Brushwood: Well, I’m excited. That was good direction. I want to see the rest of this trick.

Roy Williams: All right. Remember the gun guy?

Todd Liles: Yep.

Roy Williams: 12,000 square feet, two locations, tens of thousands of the most amazing, fascinating, you’re just sitting going, “I’ve never even imagined something like this.” I’m not talking about scary things. There is this one little derringer. I haven’t forgot the question. I’ll get to you. Okay. The little derringer. And it was like from the late 1800s. It’s exactly the kind of little chrome over-and-under, two barrels, one above the other, little short derringer with a little pearl handle, like the gambler in the saloon would have in his vest pocket. The fancy gambler, you know? The gambler from back East. And so the little thing he would pull out like that.

Todd Liles: Oh, yeah.

Roy Williams: And it had a little thumb deal and it would break over like a little break, like a break-over shotgun. It was a shotgun. It didn’t have 0.45s; it had 0.410 shells in there.

Brian Brushwood: Wow.

Roy Williams: Now, the barrel was like a half-inch longer than a 0.410 shell.

Todd Liles: You better hang on.

Roy Williams: I’m sitting here going, “This is the craziest thing.” It was real. It’s totally real. And I’m going, and it was 450 bucks. And I’m going, “I don’t even want it. I don’t want it. I don’t need it. It terrifies me that that thing would be laying around somewhere and somebody would find a 0.410 shell and slip in there.” It’s like, I vote no. And I just said, “Huh.” But I still kind of want it ’cause it’s cool. And I’m just keep looking at stuff. It’s amazing. Really old stuff, really interesting stuff. And I said, “Huh. So you’re thinking you want to spend a million dollars in this town, and the people that buy guns from you are collectors.” Yeah. They love guns. They’ve got a lot of guns.

This is a big town, but you’ve been here for two generations with two locations, and they’re the largest gun stores in America. There’s nobody in your town that doesn’t know about you. Right? I said, “Anybody that collects guns, I cannot create new gun collectors with radio ads.” And I said, “We might get a few people to maybe buy their first gun, but you’re gonna lose $900,000, $950,000 of that million just flushing it down the toilet.”

Brian Brushwood: Well, and if you’re showing up, you don’t go to a museum to buy a security gizmo.

Roy Williams: Oh, he has that sort of thing. As a matter of fact, I gave him a couple of challenges. He just shipped them to me. And I said, “Could you do this?” And he goes, “If you just would’ve mentioned it, I just would’ve brought it with me.” And I’m going, “Wow, these are like impossible gets.” Here’s what I told him. I said, “You’re gonna hire a shooter and an editor, and you’re gonna put ’em down the hall from you in one of the building where your office is.” And I say, “With that inventory, and his staff knows more and has more stories and knows more details, they can tell you what this is and what makes this really weird and special and interesting and something that most people didn’t know about it, and you just want every one of them.”

And I said, “You’re gonna come out and you’re gonna do a short every day, like two minutes. You’re just gonna pick up a gun and you’re gonna talk about it. And instead of like most gun shows on YouTube, ‘Let me shoot a big hole in this telephone pole. Watch this. Boom! Boy, I just blew that up, didn’t I?'” And I’m going, and everybody’s got on different kinds of camo and they’re trying to out-macho each other. I’m going, “Calm down. Calm down.” But that’s what’s mostly on YouTube. And I said, “Just a couple of intelligent people with the backdrop, I mean, it’s gorgeous stores, unbelievably gorgeous. These do not look like warehouses. These are like literally going to Disney World.” And I’m thinking, “Huh. Sell to America.” I said, “YouTube is a search engine.” And I say, “Everybody in the town where you are already knows about you if they’re a gun collector. Start selling to the nation.”

Takes a shooter and an editor. And I said, if you upload every day, 365 days a year, fresh content, okay? This is what I learned from Brian. There comes a moment whenever, if your content is, they recognize you have a commitment, this is unique content that’s not just rip-off of something we’ve already seen a thousand times. You’re gonna get a bunch of organic love, and they’re gonna measure how many people that click on this will watch it all the way to the end. Because what Brian taught me was every platform, their goal is to keep you on their platform. They want you to spend more time on their platform. And so anybody who will create content and keep people on our platform longer…

And I said to him, “Shooter, editor, you’ve already got the inventory, you’ve already got the staff, upload for free onto YouTube.” And I said, “Sell America for a buck and a half.” I said, “You can hire a shooter and an editor, keep them in a hall down from you, a hall down from you.” And I said, “Dudes, guess what? 365 days from now, you will have made so much profit in the second year, you’re gonna be rich.” I mean, it already was. But I said, “Second year, it’s gonna be insane.” I said, “You’re just gonna have to get past that first four, five, six painful months. But when you finally reach that moment of breakthrough and you start getting the…”

Brian Brushwood: The goal is, to me, I like kind of pulling outside of time to think of kind of like, sort of like we talked about, I know how it ends. How did we get here, right? And think about, the important part is not starting. The important part is not doing it. The important part is having done it. That’s when you have the credibility. That’s when, “Hey, why are you on this plane?” “Well, I’m going to the world’s largest gun store.” “Why?” “Well, because I have been watching them for the last 365 days.”

Roy Williams: Now, the last time I looked at one of your channels, it had like 2 million subscribers. Okay. How long did it take you to get from an idea to 2 million subscribers?

Brian Brushwood: Oh, all of the years. 100%. Like 18 years.

Roy Williams: Okay, but that one show hasn’t been there 18 years.

Brian Brushwood: Correct, correct.

Roy Williams: What I’m saying is when you had the knowledge and you knew how to do it, from the time you started, say, Modern Rogue…

Brian Brushwood: Yeah.

Roy Williams: You started Modern Rogue. You get to 2 million subscribers.

Brian Brushwood: We crossed the million subscriber mark, I think within three or four years.

Roy Williams: But see, to get to a million subscribers within three or four years is like, it’s worth the journey.

Brian Brushwood: Absolutely.

Roy Williams: If a person knew, “I could have a million people paying attention to me.” And remember, those million people all have one thing in common, and it’s a sincere interest in what it is you’re doing. So if you’re selling collectible guns and you have 1 million people watching your episodes on a regular basis, you know what they all have in common? They really like collectible guns. And that’s called a million new customers or potential customers, and they buy multiple guns. And I said, so that if you have a million people at the end of three or four years and they all have one thing in common, it’s the subject of your show, I’m going, and they all buy two or three guns, that’s two or three million guns you can sell for 150,000 bucks a year. Well, I’m a big believer in social media.

Todd Liles: I am, too. Here’s one of the interesting things. I think I saw this last week or the week before last where they were releasing the numbers as to which social media platform is making the most money and why. Now, YouTube is in a whole another stratosphere, and they’re not necessarily as transparent as you would think. But TikTok, the shorts platform, now makes more revenue than Meta. Did you know that?

Roy Williams: Did not know that.

Todd Liles: They make more revenue than Meta. And what’s interesting is their model. Meta is extraordinarily focused on ads. Ads, ads, ads, ads, ads. Give us money. Give us money. Give us money. We’ll show your stuff. TikTok has these creators, and the creators do interesting, funny videos, and then they sell their stuff on the platform. TikTok actually sees itself as a financial platform more than it does a video platform from a business standpoint. They’re… What is it called? Fintech. They’re finance tech. And between their creators, same exact concept.

A lady shows her favorite clothes. Oh and at the end of it, you can buy your favorite clothes. Now, we have clients that have been with us for a very long time, the Baileys, Julie and her husband. And their niece, she showed me this like five years ago. This is five years ago when TikTok’s just barely getting going. Could have been six years ago. Same exact concept. She shows the clothes that she likes, and you can buy the clothes on my shop. And five years ago, she was making like $250,000 as a teenager. But to your point, TikTok, YouTube, Facebook, all of the places, it’s sort of like the Gary Vee, Wine TV, I think is what he called it, something like that.

Brian Brushwood: Wine Library.

Todd Liles: Wine Library. That’s it. All right. Earlier we talked about essentially what’s the difference between persuasion and manipulation. Oh, but before we go there, what’s the trick? I think there was a trick, right?

Brian Brushwood: Oh, he mentioned what he learned from me. I heard it. I heard it.

Todd Liles: It was the video every single day. I wrote it down. 365 days of content.

Roy Williams: Yeah, that’s what I’m saying is whenever Brian was explaining to me how to build a national audience on YouTube, and I’m sitting here thinking, “Well, here we have a person. There’s no possible way that a gun collector within driving distance of their town doesn’t know about them. It’s just not possible.” And I said, “Because guys that love guns know other guys that love guns. And of course, if you have the fantasy adventure for gun collectors, word spreads.” And I said, “I can’t create new ones, but you know where there’s new ones? In every other town. And does anybody have anywhere near your inventory?” “No, not even close.” “Does anybody have anywhere near your knowledge?” “No, not anywhere in America.” And I’m saying, “Well, why are you keeping it this local secret for two generations? Go on YouTube, tell the world, fresh content every day, 365 days a year.” And I said, “It’s gonna cost you 100 and a half a year, but the rest of the money in your pocket, keep your million.”

Todd Liles: So going back to the ethical illusion. Earlier we were talking about persuasion versus manipulation. I think we did a really good job unpacking that. So I’m gonna center this in right here. You had gave an example where you’re like, “Hey, come on, everybody, clap your hands.” And I’ve done enough presentations too that I know there is a way that I can end the show, no matter how good or bad it was, with a flourish of my body and get people to clap. That’s manipulation.

Brian Brushwood: I don’t… Well, go on, unpack that for me.

Todd Liles: If it’s not earned.

Brian Brushwood: If it’s not earned, then yes.

Todd Liles: Yeah. No, if it’s earned and you do a nice flourish…

Brian Brushwood: I was about to say that can be a gift. Like for example, there have been times I’ve landed a point and I felt that pregnant moment of applause, but I didn’t give them the gift of adopting that pose, and as a result, that moment died. Right? So it can be a very good thing.

Roy Williams: Yeah.

Todd Liles: Yeah, I’m not arguing that. Keep in mind my background before the trades was theater. So they teach you about the pregnant pauses and invite the audience, let the audience play. But there are times where we go from persuasion to manipulation. And here’s my specific question to you. Have you ever, maybe in your youth, gone, “I crossed the line. I manipulated.” And if you did, what’d you learn from it?

Brian Brushwood: Oh my goodness. That sounded an awful lot like go to confession, Brian Brushwood. I don’t think I appreciate your tone, sir.

Todd Liles: It’s more fun that way.

Brian Brushwood: There has certainly been again, like they’re all versions of standing shoulder to shoulder, even talking my way out of a speeding ticket. Right? So you drive around on tour a lot. Eventually some small town, you’re going five over the speed limit, you get pulled over. This is a discretionary moment.

Todd Liles: I’m just imagining you going, “Where’d it go? It’s in your pocket.”

Brian Brushwood: When you get pulled over as much as somebody touring does, you learn to have a few kind of set bits of patter. Because if you could make, I’ve never been able to make a police officer laugh and have him also write a discretionary ticket.

Todd Liles: Okay.

Brian Brushwood: So usually back when I had the spiky hair, the moment I pulled out my license, I just had this giant crap-eating grin and the spiked hair and that would get a laugh. But other times they’re like, “Okay, I need your insurance.” I’m like, “Well, officer, this is a rental car. I don’t have my insurance on me, but I’m told this will help,” and it’d be a Get Out of Jail Free card to see if that would get a chuckle or something like that.

Roy Williams: From Monopoly?

Brian Brushwood: Yeah, yeah, exactly. My friend Mike Super, he has a whole stand-up routine. Like the moment he would get pulled over, he would say, “Officer, I know I was speeding. I’m so sorry. It’s just that it’s been a heck of a year. My wife left me for an officer of the law. And when I saw your lights and all that, I just for a second I thought you were trying to bring her back.”

And so if you can get them having a good time, if you provide some break to the monotony of their day, oftentimes they will decide it’s worth doing you a favor.

Todd Liles: That’s funny.

Brian Brushwood: Is that manipulation? Yes. Almost certainly.

Roy Williams: I don’t think so. I would disagree.

Todd Liles: Yeah.

Roy Williams: You know why? Manipulation is when a person is unwillingly being forced into something. That’s my definition at least. Being manipulated is when somebody is using your good manners or your unwillingness to create a scene to kind of force you into doing what they want because to simply say no is to create an ugly moment. It’s what you were describing when the hypnotist kind of convinces these people, “Play along, play along.” And he’s doing that without saying…

Brian Brushwood: Oh, he never… Yeah, he never says play along because that gives them too much power.

Roy Williams: That’s what I’m saying. Of course not. But what I’m saying is he’s making it obvious to them that it’s an awkward moment. Now, are you going to out me in front of all these people, it’s unspoken, are you going to out me in front of all these people or are you going to act like a chicken? You know what I mean?

Brian Brushwood: And of course, if the hypnotist is doing it right, his language is carefully crafted in such a way that at no point is he misrepresenting himself or anyone on stage. It’s just what magicians call a dual reality.

Roy Williams: He’s putting them in a situation to where they consciously know, “I have a choice to make. I have a choice to make. I can go along with this deal, or it gets weird if I out this guy.”

Brian Brushwood: See, I think that describes an amount of agency that you don’t need to throw in the mix. For example, let’s take your office introvert who never thinks of themselves as a karaoke superstar. They would never, if you just walked up to them and said, “Hey, we’re doing karaoke in the break room. Will you sing?” Like, now, meanwhile, they’re a gifted singer. It was in them the whole time. But the structure of the fluorescent lights, of there being all of these other louder people, are too intimidating. There’s too much friction on that path to get them singing. However, with the social construction of the hypnosis show, and then you get to that moment, now you’ve unlocked something. And I don’t think it’s a matter of them playing along at all. I think that they’ve never had the opportunity to enter an improvisational flow state before, and now they find themselves in it, and it’s truly an unlock. Now, that’s, of course, a talented hypnotist. There are the people who will just do the cheap fakes and misrepresent what they’re doing.

Roy Williams: Okay, okay. I think I’m agreeing with you. I’m just making a different point that I can’t make very well. So we’ll move on.

Brian Brushwood: No worries.

Todd Liles: It is interesting, though, because I think if we were to sort of land this thing on persuasion and ethics, whether we call it persuasion, whether we call it manipulation, I think the fundamental thing that we’ve concluded is that the good guys do it for joy and benefit, and somewhere along the line, the bad guy is causing harm.

Brian Brushwood: Well, and I think that in the world of philosophy, I believe it was Immanuel Kant that made the distinction…

Todd Liles: Don’t be quoting Kant up in here.

Brian Brushwood: Of are you treating someone as a means to an end or as an end unto themselves? And if you’re treating them as an end unto themselves, then you’re doing a moral thing.

Todd Liles: I like that. Okay, I’ve got three fast-fire questions that are all gonna be directed at you. Okay, quick answers, okay? Ready? Who’s the world’s greatest magician?

Brian Brushwood: Penn & Teller.

Todd Liles: Who is your personal favorite magician?

Brian Brushwood: My wife.

Todd Liles: What is the greatest trick of all time?

Brian Brushwood: Oh, man.

Todd Liles: You should have said getting her to marry me. You missed it. You missed it. But what is the greatest trick of all time?

Brian Brushwood: True. That’s a really good one. Stone soup. Stone soup is the greatest magic trick of all time. You know the parable of, you don’t know the parable of stone soup?

Todd Liles: I don’t know. You know stone soup, Ray?

Roy Williams: No.

Brian Brushwood: Yeah.

Roy Williams: I don’t know stone soup.

Todd Liles: Let’s hear it.

Brian Brushwood: Picture some medieval town, right? Everybody’s starving. In comes a mysterious peddler. He says, “Why the long face?” “Well, we don’t have any food to eat, sir.” He’s like, “Why don’t you make stone soup?” “What’s stone soup?” He says, “Simplest thing ever. It’s soup made from a stone.” “You can’t make soup from a stone. That’s crazy. Ain’t nobody gonna survive on that.” “Well, I’ll show it to you. Tell you what, Thursday night, we’ll do a stone soup.”

And so sure enough, “Build me a big roaring fire.” First thing in the morning, gets a pot boiling, and he’s like, “I’m gonna go find a stone,” and drops a stone in. And they’re like, “How’s this stone soup going?” “Oh, it’s great, but…” “Yeah? What? What’s wrong?” He’s like, “Well, I mean, if you really want to have stone soup, it needs a little pinch of salt, but…” It’s like, “Well, I mean, how big a difference does it make?” “Are you kidding me? They sing about me in the town over, but that one had salt, so yours will be fine.” He was like, “Well, I got some salt.” “Okay, great.” Grab some salt, throw a little salt in there.

And they’re like, “How’s it coming? What are you guys up to?” “Oh, we’re making stone soup. He says he can make stone soup.” He’s like, “Yeah, well, I mean, what would be really great is just a little ear of corn would really give it a little texture, something to bite in.” And of course, it goes on and on and on until finally everybody’s pitched in a little something. And there, where there was nothing, is abundance. Stone soup, a very real, nutritious, delicious meal, begins as literal spellcraft. That, to me, is what a good marketer does. That is what a gifted storyteller does. That is where you leave the world nicer than you found it. And that is the world’s greatest magic trick.

Roy Williams: You give them what was there all along.

Brian Brushwood: Yeah.

Roy Williams: I get it. I get it. It was always there, but they couldn’t see it.

Todd Liles: Thanks for joining us. This again is part one of four. Next up is part two, which is the psychology of story and the power of the reveal. We’re gonna dig into how surprise, tension, and timing keeps audiences hooked, whether you’re performing magic, writing ads, or leading a business. You’re not gonna want to miss this one, so come back. And if you like what you hear today, then like this episode, share it with a friend, and leave us a review because it really helps.

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