#411: Richard Turner — The Magical Phenom Who Will Blow Your Mind

Optimal minimal. At this altitude, I can run flat out for a half mile before my hands start shaking. And then I also do post one question. Now it is. My cybernetic organism, living tissue over metal and those galaxy. S

This episode is brought to you by Nulo Pet Food, an independently owned company out of Austin, Texas, that delivers the very best pet nutrition with high meat, low carb recipes for dogs and cats. I am super stoked about this sponsor. I had no idea they were based In Austin. But I found Nulow through a number of friends of mine and veterinarians. It's what I feed my own dog, Molly. And when I switched Molly over to Nulow, that's N-U-L O, a couple of years ago, it not only made an immediate difference in the way she looked, her coat, for instance, is much softer and much shinier, I could also tell it made a huge difference in how she felt and performed. day to day. So I have Nulo all over the place. There's a bag of Nulah about thirty feet away from me in the office where I uh sometimes feed Molly when she comes here. I have Nulo at home. I have Nulow in gallon size bags for travel Nulo is always with me.

And Molly. She loves how it tastes because Nulo Pet Food has a lot of meat in it. And I can't really imagine feeding her anything else at this point. If you have a pup and you've been thinking about upgrading their food quality in 2020, check out Nulo.com slash Tim. That's n-lo.com slash Tim to see some of Molly's favorite products. By using the promo code TIM TIM you'll also get fifty percent off any trial size bag on their site. So Two things to remember. Nulow.com slash Tim and then promo code.

Tim. As good pet parents. It's up to us. It's up to you. Douggy parents, cat parents to get the nutrition piece right for them. So Check out Nulo.com slash Tim and commit to feeding your pets better food this year. They'll love you for it, and you'll love what it does for them.

So one more time, that's new.com slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by AG1, the daily foundational nutritional supplement that supports whole body health. I do get asked a lot what I would take if I could only take one supplement. And the true answer is invariably AG1. It simply covers a ton of bases. I usually drink it in the mornings and frequently take their travel packs with me. On the road. So what is AG1? AG one is a science driven formulation of vitamins, probiotics, and whole food sourced nutrients. In a single scoop, AG One gives you support for the brain, gut, and immune system. So take ownership of your health and try AG1 today. You will get a free one year supply of vitamin D and five free AG1 travel pac with your first subscription purchase. So learn more, check it out. go to drinkage one dot com slash Tim. That's drink ag one, the number one. Drink AG One dot com slash Tim. Last time, drink AG One dot com.

Slash Tim. Check it out. This episode is brought to you by Inktel. And I've used them personally ever since I wrote the four hour work week, I've been asked over and over again how I choose to delegate tasks, how I do AD20 analysis.

and so on. At the root of many of those decisions is a simple question. Actually two questions. Number one, how can I invest money to improve my quality of life? I use that in investing as well. The second How can I spend a little money or moderate money to save significant Time. Inktel is one of those investments. They're a turnkey solution for all of your imaginable customer care needs. I used Inktel during the launch of the Four Hour Body, which was very, very involved, and they provided twenty four seven

customer service for my land rush. because it was critical for me to take care of every person who purchased my books and participated. This allowed me to focus on the things that I am better at, my strengths, like the marketing plan that we'd worked on for six months, implementing that. Intel trains their experienced customer service reps to know your business. and your products inside and out and make your customers raving fans. They answer more than a million customer service requests every year. And they can do so.

Across all platforms. including email, phone, social media, text. Even chat. Leaving your customers with poor service or just mediocre service.

Which by the way, in a competitive pool is a huge liability. Long wait times or unanswered messages carries a massive cost and risk to your business. Inktel removes the logistics and headaches. of this type of communication, allowing you to focus on your strengths and grow your business. it can be a real competitive advantage. And I see many, many e commerce companies And tech companies thinking of customer service as a good enough checkbox or an afterthought. And just like Airbnb used design in innovative ways to be

a competitor and to win, you can do the same thing with customer service. So As a listener of this podcast, you can get up to ten thousand dollars off. It's a big discount. Ten thousand dollars off your startup fees and costs by visiting inktel.com forward slash Tim. So check it out. For more info, go to inktel.com, I N K T E L dot com forward slash Tim. Hello, ladies and gyms. This is your host, Tim Ferris. Welcome to another episode of the Tim Ferris Show. I'm very Super excited.

to introduce this interview. I've been wanting to meet today's guest. Richard Turner for At least two years now. And I really expect that he will blow your mind for a bunch of reasons. I first came across Richard Turner.

Richard Turner fifty two dot com. You can find him. YouTube forward slash Richard Turner fifty two in the documentary Delt. D E A L T directed by Luke Corum. I can't remember the last time. Well, I suppose I can in this case it was this documentary, but I can't remember the last time prior to that. I'd finished a documentary Only while the credits are still rolling. uh wanting to watch it immediately again.

I also can't remember a doc that made me quite as emotional as Delt did, pushing me from laughter to tears. It has ninety five percent of Rotten Tomatoes won the Audience Choice Award at the South by Southwest Film Festival. Yada yada yada. Everyone should watch it. But let's get to my guest. Who is Richard Turner? Richard is regarded as the best card mechanic We'll explain what that means. And among the best close up or up close magicians in the world. He's entertained millions of people, including notables like Johnny Carson, Bob Hope, Secretary of State Colin Powell.

Actor Brad Pitt, sports legend Mohammed Ali, and many, many more. Richard has received all sorts of accolades, won all sorts of awards, including the Close Up Magician of the Year award, which is the magic industry's equivalent of the Oscar. His skill with a deck of cards. Is Just One could argue unparalleled.

really Just Incredible. People consider it greatness, grace. It is it is hard to even comprehend. He's been featured on all sorts of television shows around the world, including a performance on Pen and Teller Fool Us, in which Pendlet. Also a recent guest on this podcast admitted, quote, Richard Turner is one of the finest sleight of hand artists who has ever lived. He fooled us with every single move he did. Yeah.

Richard is also a six degree black belt. And we'll get into all of that and more on the podcast in the conversation you're about to hear. One very quick and important note. Towards the end of the interview, you will hear Richard performing card tricks and he he walks through it and talks about things as he does it. So you can get a lot just with the audio, but He did all this in front of me. and absolutely blew my mind. I highly recommend checking out

the video that we captured on YouTube. as we made sure to get multiple angles for this episode. You can find that at youtube.com forward slash Tim Ferris, two Rs and Two S's. And not to sound like a mullet wearing Long Island boy, which I have been. But this footage is simply fucking amazing. It's incredible. In part because of something I didn't mention.

And that is that Richard is completely Blind. So You're in for a ride. My friends.

So without further ado, please enjoy my wide ranging conversation with Richard Turner and the video, which you can find at youtube.com forward slash Tim Ferris. I'm just gonna start at the beginning. Richard, welcome to the show and thanks for coming to Austin. Tim, I'm honored to be here. It is very much my pleasure. And I was mentioning this before we started recording. I have had you at the top of my list for people I want to spend time with.

because I find just about everything about you fascinating. And I've wanted to ask so many questions. And Uh I thought we would start maybe in a place that it that would be unexpected for people listening. I'm not gonna start way at the beginning and childhood we'll probably get there. But let's start with the magic castle. What what is

The magic castle. The magic castle is to magic what the Grand Opera is to country Western music. І за примім place for magicians to perform around the world. And they have what is the equivalent of the Oscar.

The Academy of Magical Arts Awards, AMA Awards. And um but we uh it's a twenty seven thousand square foot Victorian mansion built in nineteen oh seven. And there's You go in. F strictly for adults, twenty one or over.

Must have ID. Back to the old days, you have to have coat and tie. You cannot overdress. you're underdressed, they don't let you in they don't like what you're dressed. They don't let you in. And uh and it's by invitation only.

But it's just a very, very fun venue and place to perform. I just got returned from performing at the castle. Mm. Night before last. I just threw it last time. You have one of the busiest schedules I've ever heard of, and I've met some very, very uh driven busy people.

Ah the Magic Castle has been this Yeah. Vision in my head. Or it was, I should say, for many years, and I had the opportunity to go there for the first time just last year with with a member and It just blow my mind to s variety.

Of skill and level of skill in the various rooms because there are these these uh different rooms for different perform performers and different types of performances. Could you speak to and I I I hope I'm getting this name right.

Divernon. Oh yes, you got it right. So who who is Dive Vernon and how did you First meet. Well, Diverne first of all was born in eighteen ninety four. He lived to be over ninety eight years old. My wife, my beautiful wife Kim, and I threw him his ninety eighth birthday party two months before he passed away. And he was known as the man who fooled Houdini and that took place a hundred years ago this year. Wow. Hundred years ago.

And Houdine had a boast that he could if he saw the same trick three times he could figure it out running to Did it for him five times, couldn't figure it out. And uh so he was known as the man who fooled Houdini, and for over a half a century, he was the best in the world with a deck of cards. And there's different types of magic. There's the big What we call furniture movers, the big illusionists.

And most of those things, those that type of show is really money. uh more than talent. You just have to pay two hundred thousand dollars to buy this big illusion that turns a cat into a person, you know, inside of a cage or whatever. And then there's the parlor magician with the the link rings and make eggs come out of their mouth or whatever, something along those lines where uh a smaller audience, but uh that's called parlor magic. Then there's the close-up magician.

who will do stuff right in front of your eyes, like that will make coins jump from one hand to the other and Or they'll do card tricks. But the uh the most difficult of all forms of sleight of hand is the work for the card table. the gambling work. And that work is the most closely guarded information of all slight of hand. Nowadays with the internet

Just about everything is exposed. And Vernon. um wanting to know about more g about more about the moves of the gamblers. First read a book in 19 written in 1902 called Expert at the Card Table by S. W. Urdnace, and nobody knows who Urdnays was. And the at that time the magicians in the nineteen teens and twenties the oh we don't care about that but that stuff's too hard to learn.

And Vernon had it mastered by the time he was like twelve years old. And um and so he spent his life hunting down hustlers. He's the first one that uh found Alan Kennedy in nineteen thirty thirty one. Who supposedly could deal card from the middle of the deck. Which no one thought that was possible.

And uh so the and that information was the most closely guarded pieces of Slight of hand. that you can get a hold of if you get a hold of it. He'd pass it on just special people like Charlie Miller and a few others. And uh

He I met him in nineteen seventy five. Uh I'll give I'll tell you a quick backstory. Kinda funny. Yeah, it doesn't have to be quick. Okay, please go ahead. I was working with a guy named Bob Yurkis, Y E R K E S. He was just at my show on Sunday. He's gonna turn eighty seven next month. He's been in stun. He's been in stunt business for seventy-three years. His first movie was in nineteen forty seven with Elizabeth Taylor. And he's doubled everybody under the sun, literally thousands of stunts in on television, thousands of stunts in film. Like in the movie Earthqu uh Town Infernal.

Earthquake. He died seven times in earthquake. No died a mul multiple times in Tower and Infernal and on and on. He was on the move recently with uh Tom Hanks on on Angels and Demons. He was the minister that was being burnt alive and they forgot to turn the fan on to blow him out. And Darton Hanks does well. At least you didn't have to act. 'Cause he wasn't acting, he was screaming Turn the fire.

I'm I'm hot. Anyway, but anyway, so I was working with him, we were training it was a show called Circus of the Stars, where we train celebrities to do circus acts. And I was For better or worse, I'll just call him my go his gopher. And um, but I lived with him and he's a dear, dear, dear friend for a husband for fifty almost fifty years. And um

And so We were training uh for the circus of the stars and uh a Linda Carter show called Wonder Woman. And uh I divern and heard I could do some very uh difficult moves with the cards. I just turned 21.

And I found I was gonna meet him at the Magic Castle. I found out the night before I had to have a suit to get into the castle. At that time I couldn't afford a suit. I didn't have a suit. And so I thought okay, I had my gambling money, I was out of You know, it's at that time it's decks of twenties, which was a lot of money for me. And uh and so I went to the Northridge shopping center, set my deck of cards on a coat rack, started thumbing through coats. The sales guy comes up to me and says

I'll cut you high card for that coat. I thought to myself. This is my lucky day. I said, Okay, I'll go over there. No, no, I'm just kidding. And I said, Tell you what. I took out two twos in a clean, I said, Come over to your desk here. I moved him. I said, If you tell me with that

Queen is I'll pay double for the code I picked out. If you get it wrong, you give it to me for free. And he goes, Really? I said, really? Well.

I threw those cards and darn if you didn't miss it. I should tell you what. I bet that Cody gets a parapet. If you have to go back. He goes, Okay.

Lost again. I said take coat pants against a shirt and tie. Okay, but this is the last one. And uh he lost it gets. So I walked out of there. Did but the brand new suit didn't pay a dime.

And if I would have known he was gonna uh go for it, I wouldn't have picked out the cheapest coat the place was a r tan corduroid piece of crap that I still have today because It's how I first met Vernon. So I still have it as a souvenir. But anyway, so I get to the castle and um And Mm-hmm.

Vernon. There was two guys in the room. Divernon in the this is in the library, which is separate. Yeah. The public.

And uh and another guy named Tony Giorgio. who's best known as the actor in the movie Godfather, he played played Runa Tattaglia. Which was Video Claudione's toughest headsprint. There's a scene in the movie where a guy takes a knife and stabs his hand to the bar. Yeah. The guy with that knife that was Tony Jordan. And he was a bust out man back in the forties and fifties. What is bust out man, right? A bust out man is somebody who a casino will have on hand.

Oh hey, that's Tim Ferris. He's got some money. Okay, Tony, take'em out fast. So a bus stop, man means they're gonna take you down, they're they're gonna take you down quit, get that money from you. Or if it turns out And that Tim Ferris.

He was just too lucky. Okay. Joe, you're out of here. Tony, you're in. Get that money back. And getting back means bust you out fast. Using card techniques. Yeah, using slide of hand, using card techniques, exactly. Gaming moves.

Whatever whatever his artifice was. Probably in that case a peak with a second deal. And one more time? A peak. And that was he would peak the top card. We know what the top card is. And then he would deal the card under the top card. So you can see that card on top? What's that card? That's five hearts. Okay. And as as he would deal to the other players. See that top card is not moving. And for the for those that can't see what we're doing.

I'm dealing the card in slow motion and the top card is not moving as the second card comes out. But it looks as though it's the top like here's even with one hand. And of course when the card's face down, I turn it face down. Now you're watching. And uh you can't tell that you've been swindled. So he would take him down and so then he became an actor in the Um sixties.

Yeah. And um Anyway, so at the table. was Divernon and Tony Giorgio. And Giorgio was you know he was about six foot four. Mean, nasty mafia hitman. I play I always used to say he never had to act, he just played himself. Mean, nasty mafia hitman. And uh because we had battles for

all together thirty eight years, but we battled each other for twenty years. And at first I was no threat, but anyway, I'm showing Vernon my moves. And he go Vernie goes. Well now that's all right, but but I don't care how fine you breathe, when you're moving your hand like that, it's unnatural. It's uh it tips you off and every time I did anything, Giorgio

Chip and seed from the other table, not involved in our little private uh Get together would yell, We'll get the money. We'll get the money. And then I show some of the things that we're going to do. We'll get the money. Get the money. Well not get the money, but it was won't get the money. Which is

In other words, i it's not good enough for the card table. And so that's just that is uh sleight of hand smack talk. Smack talk. That is like your mama type of line at the card table. Exactly. Won't get the money. You get a double banger, just shot twice. Yeah. And so but Vernon, uh then I showed him the move I just showed you and that technique, he thought that was kinda clean, because it wasn't more natural. And uh so I remember what he said. And uh

I went home and I practiced what he said. I don't care how much you move your hand. No matter how fine that reef is, it's unnatural action. So naturalness. And that's what I learned from Vern Vernon. naturalness. You have to be natural in your execution. And uh and so I practiced it. The next time he saw me, he goes, Now that's better, that's better. And he took and he took a liking to me,'cause he would see that I would put in I practiced at that time and this is

I and it's not an exaggeration, even though I almost wish it was, because it's I I would practice it. average of 14 hours a day. That was my average time practicing. But sometimes it might be only ten hours because I spent extra time in the gym because I was training for some kind of a fight. Or other days I got up at Uh.

six in the morning went to bed at three and I might have may have practiced twenty hours that day. But my average practice time was twenty, it was fourteen hours. And that was sustained for twenty six years seven day seven days a week. And Vernon saw this obsession in me and so he took me on. As a pro uh uh well, a student.

Protege. And to cut to the choice. I became the recipient. of a century worth of his most guarded card table artifice. Techniques that he traveled the world.

Fighting down these hustlers and learning their moves. And uh and he and I still have things today that only he and I know and I've created things. Today. that only he and I know and he's not telling anybody. I think it was uh

Uh uh was it Benjamin Franklin said three people can have a secret, but you have to kill two of'em. So If uh if we talk about your practice because your Your practice and work ethic. it it struck me when I first saw Delt, it struck me as I've done homework in preparation for this.

meeting. What makes good practice? Because there are people who practice a lot, they put in a lot of hours, but their skills don't improve or improve much. So what what makes good practice for you? Very, very, very good question, Tim. First of all, I I say

Practice. Does not make perfect. Do they say practice makes perfect? No, practice does not make perfect. Perfect practice makes perfect. You can practice something wrong when you've done it's perfectly wrong. And I see it in my industry all the time. They'll practice sec a second deal in some a awkward fashion where

Oh the most common one is the strike section and I'll give a visual clue. Uh uh picture. The card is turned face up on the deck. They'll No. hold first of all, usually they hold the deck in real tight, what's called a mechanics grip or a real deep grip.

Whiten up the grip a little bit. And then um When they go to take the card, they'll bypass The car they could take in And so they can s hit the second card and deal it out.

And And that this t this is the standard second deal that you'll see people do. But it has all kinds of tells. And it has a lot of tells. First of all You're pushing the top card over to receive it with the other hand. So why is the right thumb bypassing the left thumb is because so they as exposure to the top of the deck where that second card is to get a hold of it. That is a totally unnatural action, but you'll see it all the time. And then and then and then you don't have a dead deck.

Uh, one of Vernon's students and who became a peer at Vernon's was a guy named Char Charlie Miller. who I had the privilege of spending time with. And they grew up all through the thirties, forties, fifties, sixties, seventies, eighties. Eighties. And uh M v m Miller talks about a dead death.

When you're dealing the top card. Everything below it. There's no movement. Uh and so if there's movement being made when you're taking the separate card out and the top card is going back. You don't have a dead deck. You have to

movement of two different movements. The second card coming out, the top card going back. Now watch my second deal. There's the there's no I'm not I'm not crossing the thumbs at all. And my left.

Um Is uh Uh there's no leaking of the car at the other other corner and I'm not going anywhere near the top of the deck. And this um that particular session deal. I have

Pactest. Well I've done it in front of a live audience about five million times. And in practice I've done it over a hundred million times that one move. I proclaim or s I say that it's probably the most difficult move in all of sleight of hand.

because there's only two three other people That are getting it down. And one guy's been working on it after he after you watch my videos for thirty years now. And uh Uh but it just takes a long time.

But anyway, get off. Off a track. Practice does not make perfect. Perfect man practice makes perfect. Same thing with in the martial arts. Yo, you saw a sidekick. You other people don't swoop the kick up.

as they go. You lift it and you shoot it in like a Like a like a blade. Like a pistol. You practice it wrong. You sit there, practice it wrong and you're done. It's it's not wrong. It's perfectly wrong. Yeah. Okay, and then And then there's another thing I I I like to say. Um Um

Uh Discipline. Breeds discipline. Uh they say, How do you put in time? And when I'm telling people when they want to train.

Or something. I see. The more you do something, the more you can do of it. Discipline breeds discipline. You do something, and then the more you're able to do it. And the better you do it. And so and then they say, Well, I just can't run a marathon.

I said don't run a marathon. Right now, I want you to just walk down the distance of two houses and walk back. Make it so easy you can't talk yourself out of it. The next day. Walk the distance of three houses. Come back.

When that's the. jog down the distance. And come back. And then eventually. Your body starts adapting.

And those endorphins start getting released. And then after a certain period of time, it's like Will you get back in the house? Does it have to be a marathon? You know. So discipline breeds discipline. And perfect practice makes perfect. So let's talk about your physical practice. The training. And I have so many notes here in front of me. Uh it's an embarrassment of riches as uh S as uh as I have written down here, CBS producer David Rubin.

Turner's life story is too incredible for fiction, and there's there's a lot to that statement we'll get back to. You mentioned the stunt work, uh you've flown on a trapeze, tight rope walks, you have High Falls. Yeah, high falls you've done it. You've done an incredible amount of physical cultivation. And I have have a line here. So on March fifth of this year, you will have not missed a workout in forty nine years. True. All right. Why is

training important to you? Why would you go to the trouble as I have down here in the 70s? There were no gyms when you were on tour, so you traveled with a wooden briefcase with a hundred and twenty pounds of weights inside. Sounds like a work out in and of itself. Why is it so important to you? Um

Well Part of it is When I was growing up. I was always the second Smallest or second smallest in my class.

Mm-hmm. And I would get beat up. Or I'd get pushed around. And um That we watched uh and then

We haven't really got off on this point yet. At nine years old, I started losing my sight. My sister Lori who I call my genius sister. Because he's brilliant. And I we both got scarlet fever. I was nine na sixty three, she was five.

And that caused With for me. Within A matter of moment. I'm

Fourth grade, watching. It's chalkboard and all of a sudden It just went blurry. It was like someone took the chalk the chalkboard and smeared the chalk. It was that sudden. It was that sudden. And the same thing with my sister. One minute. Yeah.

Full sight to legally blind. And um So Now.

I'm We we were forced in second, third, and fourth Lord of the flies. And and I to this day don't know why they made kids watch

A horrifying movie like that. And what it was about. Was a group of kids stranded on an island. And the boys. They were all like between probably.

eight to twelve, somewhere in that. Age frame. And there was one boy Called Piggy. And he was a chubby boy and he had to wear glasses.

And he had asthma. And they found out that they could use his glasses to make a fire. And because he was chubby, they called him Piggy. And so he was picked around And he had asthma and then and when at ten years old.

I found out that I had asthma of a sudden I'm just deathly sick. Because we we were very poor. Our house literally. Was a Structure sat on a ditch.

About a six foot di a foot ditch, and my dad poured concrete down in that ditch to make my bedroom. And during the winter I My bed would have four, five, six inches of water under it. Which means molds, and I was definitely allergic to molds. I would just get

Extremely ill. And so I was Now I'm blind, had asthma, and I was skinny. He was Chubb Piggy was blind asthma and he was Shall be.

And so I thought I don't want to be a piggy. I don't want to be a coward. And I was afraid I was gonna be a coward. Because I was afraid. And I was afraid of getting beat up.

And I was afraid when I'm walking down the street. Oh a guy named Leland. you know, picks a fight with me and And And I get hurt.

Doug Ferguson beat me up. And uh others anyway, so I I didn't want that. And then There was another show that uh affected my What

kind of caused me to go uh off the charts the other direction was called Lost in Space. And there was a little boy on there, Billy Mummy, uh playing Will Robinson. And there was the man on the show, Doctor Smith. who was the man, the coward, hiding behind a rock while this goofy looking monster made out of paper mache would come walking up and Billy Mummer Mummy would save the day, the little kid. And I thought he's brave and and I was afraid of turning out like Doctor Smith.

Mm-hmm. And then that and then the third thing was Tarzan movies. They'd you'd see them walk across uh a tree go spanning two cliffs Yeah, maybe a th hundred feet down, thousand feet down. And then there was always the guy that turn around and say, Whatever you do, don't look down.

And then there were the next guy would be the coward would look down and goes screaming to his death. And I was afraid I'd be that coward that would look down and and and panic and fall down. So I started just taking things to the outer limits as far as pushing myself.

I d and and Growing up there I had three Three movies. On the other side that affected me. One was

Uh. Ben Hur. Starting Charton House Charton Huston. There's a scene in the movie where he's pulling the oars with his big bulging biceps. And that image is strength.

w you know made me want to be strong. I want to be strong. I want to I wanna be strong like him. An another one was um The Green Hornet starring Bruce Lee. As as uh Kato. And uh you know and I th I wanna kick like Kato. And uh and then f the third one was uh

Was uh Uh the one that really probably set my life on fire was uh James Garner in Maverick. He was the cool slick gambler. Yeah I won. So those are the three things, but that's really what started me off on taking things to the extreme. Whatever someone else did.

Whatever they benched, I was gonna bench more. Whatever their split was. I got to where I could do a two hundred degree split. In fact I d there's even video out there where I'm stretched across two chairs and I'll touch my head to the floor. Yeah.

So anyway I always I just had this thing of whatever someone else did I had to top it. Not that I was able to top everybody, which I was not. But I know top People in the top one percent.

And I've trained with some very world class athletes. you know, and I either trained them or trained with them and And uh and uh people had a hard time. Frank keeping up with me. Well, I mean you're you're still an extremely thick guy. You told me before we started recording that you worked out at five this morning. Yeah. Well you understand this, because you're an athlete yourself. Yeah. That's that's another real thing.

I I I do.'Cause it it wakes me up. It gets it gets the adrenaline going, the endorphins shooting and And uh'cause I had I've shows all week last week. Every day. And uh and I flew in last night. Yeah.

Nine AM Nine PM. And I've thought, okay. I need to be on my on my best game because I'm meeting Tim Ferris and we're gonna be talking for two hours and I have been my voice was already worn from all the shows I've done.

And uh the what's the best way? First person says rest. Right. Uh uh. I was in the gym and then all of a sudden I started at five and I was

It's Eleven minutes after seven, I've been in here for two hours and eleven minutes. My rides are gonna be here in forty nine minutes. Down to Fish tacos that my wife made. She makes the best fish tacos.

Anywhere on the planet, my wife Kim, and I down those things and then shower and here we are. And here we are. And uh As as you mentioned We we hadn't covered and hadn't talked about cited Uh or the uh the other CBS, the uh

Charles Bonnet syndrome. Charles Bonnet syndrome. That's French and English is Charles Bonnet syndrome. Especially in Texas. Yeah. And I didn't and I and I didn't bring it up earlier very deliberately because I want people to understand that. Your Incredibly deft. technical mastery of what you do.

stands on its own. Head to head against anyone period full stop. So I wanted to Making that. Appreciate that. Yeah, it's true.

And that's certainly been recognized by many people, and I So I didn't want to I certainly want to chat about the sh the Charles Bonnet syndrome. Um but I didn't want to lead with it. But but since uh since it came up Uh

And and uh We we chatted very briefly about this before we started recording. Could you please talk? to me about the red and blue spectrum.

Um because because I've I've heard you or I've and I've read you s uh say that you You can see things, or you see things that other people don't see. And I'd love to just know what your sort of experience of reality is like. My world that I live in. Your world. Yeah. First let me explain what CBS Charles Bonnet syndrome is first document in seventeen sixty by Charles Bonnett Charles Bonnet.

And um It's a very rare condition. And Dr. Oliver Sachs, he's a best selling author, and I'm sure. Amazing author. Yes, I'm sure you've made it. He has two books, one called Hallucinations, the other one called Uh The Mind's Eye, where he goes into specifics on CBS. And he's probably documented more cases than anybody. And up till nineteen ninety there was only six document cases. And then he's six up to nineteen ninety. And then he's uh documenting a few others.

And uh I'm po I'm the most extreme case on the planet. Most people what it first of all let's kinda give you a picture view of what a CBS is, Chalbonnet. And that's where you s a person that's blind and sho see nothing will see sporadic. colors or splatters or or pieces of images or or just some visual things.

Alm almost like hallucinations. Right. And they're sporadic. In my case. Yeah, I'm It's one hundred percent.

twenty four seven and it's not just it uh uh just part of my vision. I see ya. One hundred and sixty degree. Kaleidoscope. Oh.

beautiful, vivid colors, patterns, shapes, every subconscious image you can imagine. And I don't see them in the back of the brain like when you dream and imagining. I look at them, I see them in front of me, I see them in external space. Just like you're seeing me in external space. There's something I'm looking at it. Right now I'm in the blue spectrum. And to explain the difference between blue and red. I have a a neuroscientist um that was doing some uh interviewing me for some projects and stuff.

And he said the red spectrum. Which is more geometric shapes. Uh it's everything is first of all there's a grid. It's usually a grid like layers of bricks. And they're always perfectly aligned.

And they're uh perfect rectangle bricks laid out just like a brick. In the red or in the red? This is the red. This is the red. Okay. And then there it's always maroon, which is my favorite color. One of my favorite color of the red spectrum. So the brick w would be the the the gray mortar is actually maroon and then the red bricks and in those bricks are all every geometric shape. Circles, squares, triangles, stars, just every geometric shape you can imagine. And in those shapes will be any every subconscious image that's floating around in my m in my brain. Okay. That's the red spectrum. He said that's the if I remember, that's the lower part of the brain. And um

And then the blue spectrum, which is I call it the right brain, the the analytical. The other is the blue spectrum, which is Very artistic. There's no rand it's not r it's it's totally random. If you picture I call it like breast strokes. Breaststrokes. I like breaststrokes. Well but only I I like there's only two breasts that I'm allowed to stroke. And they belong to Kim. Okay. And I don't want any slap from you and so it brush strokes. Brush strokes. You can see where my my mind is right now. I just got in a week week away from my beautiful wife. Okay.

So Brush I did to get brush slips. Okay. I've been making Freudian slips all all week. The more Freudian the better it is. So the in the blue you have these brush strokes. Brush strokes. And then and the royal blue To turquoise blue.

to sky blue to Emerald green to lime green, all the way down the the the the the the that spectrum. And they're just random strokes. And and then floating around. is like I said every subconscious image you can imagine. And uh just pick yourself underwater in a pool.

With the light coming in. And the light spectrum. breaking down like a prism. Right. breaks down the lights back, so all these colors just floating around is all the images are two dimensional, but they're layered three dimensionally. Mm. If you picture that. So it's a panes of glass. Yes.

Forward. And and the thing about it is I can take Any particular image. Um and I I probably I'm I won I I won't get slapped, but she might go again. Like I can take a picture of uh image of my beautiful wife in her bikini. And I can you know take it.

Zoom it in. Rotate it. You know or or where I use it most. is if I'm create uh designing them I I've I've built design and built my own homes and or like a patio deck.

And my wife Kim will tell you, I'm sitting in my my Chair. And I'm watching in full three dimension. Like virtual reality. I l basically live in virtual reality. And my whole my my spectrum is my own computer. So I wanna design a bu uh uh a deck, and I built this three level deck.

And I would say okay, I need. Uh four by twelve post now. Four by twelve. Across there and then up. Two by six, they'll anchor in there and you'll watch me w looking back and forth, engineering this giant projects. with a p giant project with a thousand cuts

It was three levels, stairway, hanging swings built in Uh flower flower beds. And um without a single piece of paper. And I tell my dad, okay He was my cutter. I said this board has to be 192 and a quarter inches.

And and I and my dad is a genius. My dad was a Worked uh well, he was one of my But role models. But It but I can't tell him or my wife what I'm gonna do because I can't explain a thousand cuts.

What I'm doing here. And so then we'd start putting it together and then he'd watch this whole thing come together. He goes, Now I understand what you say what you were talking about doing. So that's uh one of the ways that I'll use it. And probably the thing I use it all mostly, uh is like I want to remember phone number. I can write the number down in the air. I'll see it floating in the air just like you see it on a computer screen. My mind takes a picture of it and I have what's called a detic memory and then it just files away. I I I bring it back up.

Um Or uh would I practice it with cards. I will I and I do this every time at a restaurant or where I'm people and I I'll have the table. And I'm watching the move. And I'm analyzing something, I'm doing.

And I'll see it. And my mind will j create the image. It is not flesh. Like you have. conglomeration of all kinds of Of um

geometric shapes or images to create the image of an arm. Right. The the image of the cards. So it's not flesh and blood colored the same way you would see it. But I d will see the thing, the the image of the the constructed Within my mind. Uh what I'm looking at. And then I'll analyze it and I'll then I'll be in the and I'll see everything going on. Yet there's a solid object between me And what I'm looking at

Right. But yet here's the interesting thing. If I turn like this Can't do it. If you turn your head. If I turn my head. I have to be looking at the object. Like my medicine cabin is an example. I I have a friend who's a writer. He thought this was interesting. My medicine camp. I'm going, Where is that camp of phonique? And now you see everything in my medicine cabin. I'm going down. Ah, there it is.

And I'm seeing everything. Yeah, the door's closed. Okay. But now if I turn light this way, I have to see it by mind. I can't see it in front of me. Oh wow. That's fascinating. And uh and uh but anyway, so I I I consider it uh a a real blessing that I have uh this strange condition. And uh'cause I use it all the time. Yeah.

And I like that I I I consider myself. Oh very very blessed. And and within seconds you know I I can shake someone's hand and I usually I can tell their height, weight Um uh characteristics about them and my mind would create

An image of what I think they look like it's sometimes totally out in left field. Um uh it'll create its own my own uh impression of that person. And then when they're talking

I will see some strange looking Conglomeration, mouth moving. Um even though it's not let's say flesh colored, but it Or flesh looking. Or human looking.

But it's a representation. But it's a representation of movement and motion. Well if you think about it also uh for those people who are sighted I mean what they are perceiving they consider reality but it's it's They have their own lens, you have your own lens, and it's it's They're they're both representations in a way, if that makes sense. And uh

Mm. I wanted to ask a few follow up questions with the The uh adytic memory? The photographic memory. Is that something that you had partially or fully before losing your site or is it something that was developed over time, a bit of both? It was something I had beforehand.

Um, I remember when I was five years old in kindergarten. And we were f finger painting class. Mm-hmm. And I have a picture of a national geographic image.

that I saw of a seascape. And so all these other kids are just doing their finger painting their nose and their ears and their hair and their table and I come up with this seascape and I into this To this day. F what is it? Sixty years later. So over sixty years later, I can still see the exact thing that I created sixty years later. And it was you'll start off with the uh the gr the the ground and then I had seaweed No, sorry, I touched your deck.

Okay. See, we'd go on up and there would be uh Uh no, this corner had a a jellyfish with the things coming down and a shark in the middle and just different uh things that I that I Replicated. From an image I saw in a national geographic. Uh.

And uh and and so from from ages five, six, seven Eight. I was the best artist in the school. And uh I could like I said, see a picture and I could pretty much replicate it. And

And then the problem and then when I s you know, nine and I had scarlet fever, then I I started losing that ability. Peak and Raw. With With um That must have been

That must have been really difficult, I would imagine. I mean h how That was uh very difficult and that was probably where uh some rebellion took place. I was shipped off to a special school where they had what it was called a VH room back then, visually handicapped. And now you say visually impaired, you know, politically much more polite. been visually handicapped.

And I hated the word handicapped. And I despised the word blind when I was Yeah, I had to go to school and My sister Lori. She only went there one year and She got she rebelled so much, she said.

put me back on regular school, she refused to continue to go. But my vision was worse than hers at the at the time. And so I she was able to get away with it. I was not. And um Oh. In the at the school. The best artist was a co name.

Uh Sharon Coleman. Mm-hmm. And she was the best artist, where I was always the best artist in Narranca. in first, second, third, fourth grade. Now all of a sudden Nobody knows who I'm, nobody cares. I'm Sharon. She's the one that does the best artwork.

And uh and so there was a guy in the VH department, there was about a dozen of us that w Th and we'd go to it was a regular school, but they had a VH department, V visually handicapped department. And one of the guys in the VH room was a guy named Ruben Carral. who because he was from Mexico uh was like twice my size and it was too three years older than I was, but we were in the same grade.

because you didn't have the opportunity to go to special school. And uh He would just scribble. He couldn't draw it off. So and he got attention, hey look at that stuff good. So he got attention. For just doing crap.

And so I started doing crap. I sort of sort of shown my skills. With best I could. I I started I just started going the other direction and just scribbling, although I did do one three dimensional project.

um that doctor um uh sam Cumbe who is the T teacher Um I did a sculpture. And I still have it in my office. You can still see it today. Of Uh of a of a b uh Buddha monk.

I know bald head and uh and uh anyway, and and it was all Um what what with the word um Um It was all properly proportioned in the in and I got AMAD for that project. And that's one of the few things that I do I still have from that. But that was a three dimensional thing. Why did you keep that?

Because I got. Because it was Actually, because it I did a Good job. But here's that's a also an astute question on your end, because I there was other pieces I did.

And Uh in high school I did a collage. And And I I was just rushing through my art class'cause I could y I could do stuff and if you got seven and a half points

You got an A. And I could have my art projects done within up the first month of the semester. And I already got my A so I did I could m mess around after that. And I do this one. project. And I don't even know what was to this day, I don't know what was so good about it.

But we had a s my t teacher was uh Mr. Swannis. His assistant. Don't remember his name, but he went to San Diego State University. He took my art project and entered it into a statewide College competition.

And it got first place. And he gave me the ribbon. The blue ribbon. For first place and they just put it on display. uh in the hallway

uh if the if the high school you know these little those little sliders with the lock door, little lock windows and they And uh And then when I said, Oh, can I get my art project back and they went there and it was it was gone. No breaking, there was no glass broken. So we we figure the um the student that claimed it to be his that entered it obviously

Went off with it. Hm. But but other project after that. Um I started I would I'd get my A. build my project, you know, especially the three dimensional ones I was good at. And then I'd per I would purposely sabotage them. Because you fire them and they kill them.

Yeah. And uh and if you have uh something that has air in it that is completely sealed, it'll blow up. So I'd make my project, get my grade on it, and then when I'd go have it fired, I'd purposely put in either a the a ball of clay with a hole in it. Or build something in it. So when it was fired it blow up. Why did you do that? 'Cause I just I I I was I was angry that I lost uh I was lo I was losing my vision and losing my ability to uh paint and draw and

And so this is just one of the ways I was be an ornry and uh um Just rebelling against my My loss. So I I would love to ask you about and this is ver from the very first moment that I saw the documentary I've I've wanted to ask you about Anger.

and rage because uh One my first thoughts uh upon watching the documentary, which was very emotional for me. To be honest. um was that any woman who ever dates me should have to watch this movie because it'll give her a better understanding of

How consumed. For different reasons, but consumed I was by Anger. Or driven by it at the very least. How did you?

Uh How did you relate to anger or what purpose did it serve for you then and and how do you relate to it now? That's a big question. So you can break it up into any segments, yeah. At the time. I I I kind of just described how I dealt with some of my anger and that was self destructive.

And I got into other self destructive behavior and I it was late sixties. Begin seventies and So for about three years the drugs was a part of that. As an act of rebellion. And

Um and and and purposely not trying to do my best. The only thing I did Worked at uh worked out was cards. And uh I would play card with people. And I would uh

Uh take their money. And uh and we and my Doug tr my drug dealing partner named Doug Ferguson. who died from hepatitis from dirty needles. And um Uh he would have me.

Yeah, to cheat'em or trick them out of their money. And that's how we we supported ourselves and we Uh well, okay. made our money to buy and sell. Right.

Um and so that was kind of uh I I actually that was kind of a po the only power that I had. The rest of the time I was Laughed at. Um uh and and there would be times where we would be Doing something drug and then when I'd come out of the

Stuper or blur, they'd be laughing at me. And uh and And they was they were at first they were the only people that accepted me because the you know I was This is the drug dealing. The drug the drug crowd accept they don't uh we don't care if you can't see, you know, come on over. And uh where the the st the regular students were were more discriminating. Uh towards

uh some of us in the VH uh rooms. And then uh and so the drug people they didn't care, but then when it got right down to it It was more of I was more of a tool of uh of their of amusement for them.

And And then then I I I met a guy And uh And and then we get off on another little

Tangent here. Yeah. Yeah, a verse in the Bible said God created us in his image. Matt always fascinated me. In his image.

And so I thought, okay. I'm in the image of God. What did God take dirt and made a person? God took dirt, made an eyeball. God took dirt and made a brain. God took dirt. It made a bird. And uh

And I I remember watching an episode of uh of Kung Fu and they say, Who will teach me about the universe? The universe will teach you. And I and I thought well. That's like saying the wall would teach me.

But who built the wall? Who built the statue of liberty? There wasn't the Statue of Liberty didn't know the Statue of Liberty. So then I started thinking What what Yeah.

Me and the image. Of God. Okay. God created a bird. Man took dirt.

And we're created. A jet. Mm-hmm. God took dirt, made I, we took dirt. Made a camera.

They're staring at us all over the place. God dictate it. And made a brain. We took dirt. Made a computer. What's the the

Chip and who's based sand. Dirt. Just about everything in this room. In one fashion or the other. Came from dirt.

And so I thought okay, that means I can create. And so um Aye. went another direction. I got heavily into

The martial arts. Started in nineteen. Uh March fifth. Nineteen seventy one. And uh micro audience structure.

was a man named John Murphy. May I pause you for one second? So what precipitated that ninety degree turn or that one eighty, was there a conversation or a particular day or What catalyzed What catalyze that term was.

I was with Um Some friends. And they wanted to watch a movie called Fantastic voyage.

Which was a movie about Shrinking down a s a s a s ship, a submarine. And then setting it into a by guy's body to go into his heart to try to fix it. Okay. And they've said, Hey the fantastic voyage is on. Let's get some angel dust.

And uh watch the movie. And then they and And so I I realized I gotta stop this. And there was something out there saying you need to stop it. Or you can end up

And I have a half a dozen well, that's a dozen friends who've now O D And we're dead. And and I thought I if I don't stop this, I'm gonna be next and I realized I need some help. Anyway, so I went to I went to these people at this park, Wales Park, and I asked them if they uh had any age of us. They said, We have something better. I said, What's that? They said a relation with the creator of everything you see.

I said, you mind if I sit on tell me what you know. And they're the ones that told me that we're not here by accident. We're here by design. And if there is a creator. And so it was at that moment that I said I was gonna uh change my direction. Turn around. And and then you mentioned the martial arts and uh John Murphy.

That was the that was M that was I'm a very I every moment of my life is like a a a video I can watch and pin in on every any exact image or moment. That was uh February thirteenth, seventy one. you know three weeks later, you know, March fifth.

Um My brother. It was Seven years younger than me. You've done.

And he was taking karate. And uh I wanted to take party because I was tired I was get I'd get beat up. I I get off a little tangent. I entered another. uh art competition when I was eleven.

And I was I had to have my nose like two inches from the canvas as I painted these three Vosses. Vases with proper shadow lights coming in, you got first place. These two boys didn't like the this blind kid.

And they called me Mr. McGoo. There was a cartoon out that time. Jim Backis. called mister McGu's kind of this goofy side and pair person that just went through life jollily, uh just missing trains and Planes, trains, and automobiles, and that was me. And so They would say they'd flip the bird in front of my face and say, Hey McGu, how many fingers am I holding up?

Well I was distract distract is friend picked the wall out of my back pocket, then dangled it in front of my face, said Hey McGu got any money? When I grabbed from my wallet, he didn't throw it over my head to his friend behind me. In a cool game, we keep waiting. They kept every time I turn around, grab the they just keep going back and forth over my head. And then finally one of them started literally slapping me across the cheeks with my own wall wall saying, You got any money, my blind boy? And the other kid jumped on my back.

drove me to the ground, kicked me in the ribs. And they ran off laughing, saying, Thanks Dou. because I had three dollars in there. For me three dollars was a m that was all my entire life savings card play and everything all rolled up into three bucks. And so I was so upset about that. And uh

So that Jumps forward to uh Uh the martial arts is that where we're going to have. And um Yeah.

And uh anyway, so my brother was taken karate. And uh so I I wanted to go down and they They Gave him warning, well, you know, this guy can't see and And Murphy.

He didn't care if you're blind, deaf, or dumb. He be he beat everyone equally. He was my Sensei. Mm-hmm. Sensei John where he was a year ahead of Chuck Norris. He was a class of fifty seven. Norris was clas started fifty eight. And uh he opened up M Murphy opened up his school in Tijuana in nineteen sixty. And he uh was the first White guy, who's called white guy, Caucasian, he was I Irish to get a black boat in Japan.

um in in this particular system. Waterpiece. Kind of a cross between Shotokan and Taekwondo or Yeah, it combines hands and feet. where one Shotokan six Shotokan which is the number one style was m really basically mainly hands. Anyway, he um

So we'll we'll take'em. We'll take'em. And uh first he told'em don't hurt him in the girl uh first in the girls. I'd get beat up by the girls. I'd be get beat up By the All ladies. Ladies that we would know well who would be the driver. Yeah, old enough to be my mother.

And uh it was all I could do to keep from ending up on the ending up on the floor. And so I realized, okay. I gotta Uh I gotta start. Mm.

Getting better at this and at that time I waited. One hundred and ten pounds and I'd have my full hive five nine. And Murphy said, Okay, I want you to start taking Uh you need to start lifting weights. You gotta put some meat on those bones.

So I started punching pushing weights. And I Went to Gene Fisher's gym. And uh Fisher.

Um He held the world's record for the curl at that time, nineteen sixty three. Two hundred twenty one pounds. Two hundred twenty one pounds curl. Recorded and two hundred and twenty six unrecorded. And and of course he was in the two hundred pound category. And so at that time I weighed a hundred and th uh, a hundred and thirty pounds, I got up to a hundred and thirty pounds. And at one hundred and thirty pounds I could pull down two twenty. And he would have to pull me down.

Lock me in, do my reps, lift me back up. I could uh I was about two fifty on the bench at that time at one hundred thirty pounds. And uh Um And and then Murphy would say, uh push me to the point where I could do

Five hundred push ups in twelve minutes, nine seconds. which is my record, but it usually is five hundred push ups, maybe fifteen minutes. Which um was actually wor world class time record of time I could do five hundred push ups in fifteen days. I know that is a bluff on your end. Everybody out there that just listened to Tim say that, Tim is an athlete. Tim is probably just as crazy as I am. He's being modest right now. I'm just telling you, because he doesn't want to speak for himself. Listen to what I'm saying, everybody. Tim. I I felt Tim out when we first got together. And and I mean that in a nice way. Check those forearms, just forearms. Popeye, I know jealous. Popeye you're jealous. Olive oil.

He's over here. So five hundred push ups. Thank you for saying that. Yeah, and but earning the twenty that I slipped you earlier before. I was world class time uh you know, fifteen. in uh in one quarter of the time. Uh one fourth and a quarter of the time. So it was And then um and that's when I travel around with that uh briefcase with a hundred and Uh twenty pound.

twenty pounds uh in dumbbells that would be broken apart, put it together on the road, do my exercises. And so on. Anyway, so then Murphy says, uh you need more weight. And so he said, Town to take vitamins, vitamins every day so I start taking vitamins. And he said protein powders. So I've um for the past fifty years, almost forty nine years

Every morning I'd throw everything under the side. I even throw my vitamin tablets in the blend and blend them up with uh With uh protein powder. The best drink. For

If you want to you have two choices. Burn up. Work out like a madman. And I call it liquid hell. And what it is, you take

Water is your base. Yeah. And they'd put it Schiffs Burgist. Wish Really is tasty. Bad.

Yeah. I put a half a banana for potassium in Three to four to six jalapeno peppers. Blend it up and it. Yeah. You had two choices. You either worked out or you just sweats just started pouring out your head. And my my workout partner, Jim Bloers. W who you sh probably saw in Delt, he was the one that was talking about Right now the back of my motorcycle tell me where to go.

And um He said. Uh when you first Started car college. I say, Okay, you have to have some liquid hell.

And he the first time he did it, he threw up in the sink. And I said, You're not wasting that liquid hell, you drink the rest of that. And so he got it down and it and and he couldn't go through a final. without having to his liquid hell because it stimulated his brain and his body. Anyway.

So uh But it's not for sissies, I'll just say that. Anyway, so uh that's what I would drink to uh to just boost the The energy level. And uh Um anyway, so I I finally p uh put on some weight and then I remember nineteen

eighty is when I broke A hundred uh I broke a hundred and sixty, got to one hundred and sixty. Pounds. And then I kept pressing and I got up to I I worked out with uh at um Jo d Doug McNoli, who was Mr. Universe.

Uh at his place. And uh Um He ha I got up to three forty on the bench is what I topped out at. And I weighed in at one sixty eight.

And And today. Uh when I got my first black belt. My first degree black ball, and Murphy wanted the hardest test. Yeah, and it was considered the hardest test of the time.

You had to fight a ten round bout. With a fresh fighter each round, ten three minute rounds. And he didn't care uh about he didn't want to deal with lawsuits, so most of the testing and training took place across the border of San Diego and Tijuana. So that's where his school in the in the States and another main way to do it.

Offered an honorary blank belt. Yes. And you did not accept. No, but to get my first uh belt I had to fight one round three minutes and plus all the katas. And the thing about the katas because of my adeptic memory. I can memorize them. In one day.

Right. Yeah, and uh in fact when I got I I when I got my fourth degree black belt, I uh had a six degree black belt cotta that I learned in one day. The guy who uh went through it. And then the next thing he sees it on Fail me goes.

I can't believe you did it. We just You just I just showed that to you, blah, blah, blah. Sure just days before, you know. And for those people who don't know, a kata is a predetermined sequence of moves that you perform alone. Exactly. Doing punches, kicks, blocks. uh counters in the yeah so that it's like a martial arts dance. Right. So a six degree black belt cottage would be like someone being shown

A sort of Extremely complex halftime performance at the Super Bowl dance routine and then being able to replicate it. Shortly thereafter. Perfectly perfectly explained, exactly, Tim. And uh so I I get the katas and all that stuff down overnight. R right off the bat. There's the fighting because To let you understand how I was seen at the time.

I had some vision. At that time, my teens and twenties. My vision was measured at twenty over four hundred, twenty over four fifty. with no center vision 'Cause my macula, which is the center of the eye, was gone.

Okay, so there's no machine. That's your forward vision. So if you just picture yourself There's a hat in front of your face. Wherever I turn my head, there's a hat. blocking that part of vision, okay? With me? Out of the corner of my eye was twenty four four fifty. So twenty two hundred is legally blind.

Twenty fifty is you have to have at least twenty fifty to drive. So out of the corner of my eye, that's where I would see the images or shadows of my opponent. And so I'd always be looking at you like hawkeyed. I was wondering about that because I noticed that in the footage from the documentary. Got it. So you're looking at your peripheral vision. Yes, because I had no forward vision though. Right. And uh and that's how I know when I'm looking at people at that at that time. Now I have no vision at all. Right. Uh but uh at that time if I if I couldn't see anything, I knew I was looking right at you. Which was anyway, so um because by so first

First belt. Yellow was one fight. Green belt. Uh I had five two minute rounds, five bouts, five rounds. two with a fresh fighter, two minute rounds.

And uh on a scale of one to ten. I trained, I practiced, I s and I thought okay. Uh I figure it's gonna be a maybe a four, five or six. It turned out to be a twenty. It was beyond my worst nightmare. And that it was August second.

Nineteen seventy two. And it was Over a hundred degrees outside. And our dojo. was in T one, as I said.

It was a solid Block brick. blo uh cement block building. No windows, no air conditioner, not even a fan. Uh wood floor, scratched up wood floor. And whenever they would have tests

All the it was like blood sports, like cock fights. And uh so all the statistics People would come out to watch whenever they hear the uh gringos are gonna be coming up and there's gonna be some fights. And so John Douglas was testing for his black belt.

that day and I was testing for my green belt. I was the I was the I was the pre-show before the big show. Right. The warm up act. I was the warm up act. And so I get out there thinking And and and it was because it w we're all crammed into these little things. The humidity f factor was in the h in the nineties. So Before I even started on porn

I was gasping for as soon as I did my first set of cotton. Then I did my defense moves. I was already gasping. Then I start my first round and right before we started Murphy's The rule was We would respect each other's head. If you don't hit me in the head, face, I won't hit you in the face. Body's open target, no limit.

Okay, drain shots, everything that we we r respect each other's knees. No knee shots. Everything else is open. If you hit me in the face, then the face becomes an open target. Mm-hmm. And so um Murphy said, Now these guys start hitting you in the face

Don't think about it, just keep fighting. And at that time I thought? I thought we were gonna mark our sh shots to the face. And within the first three first few seconds of the first round, bam, bam, bam, three shots, bam, bam, bam, right in my face. And I'm going, Oh my God.

Yeah, yeah. I'm f I was fighting for my life.'Cause they didn't like us gringoes down there. Everything was just set in you know, discriminate against the the black clan, the black fighters. Black Federation and and the and the and the Mexican fighters and the gringos. And uh And so I you know, the first round I bet and I'm just casting for air. Second round

Yeah, this guy watched the Bruce Lee movie of Enter the Dragon, and it was before that uh Fist of Fury, where he does a step up heel hook, spins driven with another heel cook, and I catch the one, like, wow, it blocks out, boom, only get nailed. With the with the other one coming around the other way and Third round, this guy would like knees. I kept getting knees in the groin. Fourth round. Um The guy's w even stands, he switched dances on me, grabbed my front hand, went right by me and bam, right in my left eye.

caught an orzuki or right hand punch. And it pretty much knocked me out. And now I've seen nothing, I'm just seeing stars. And murder says. Wipe off the butt. Don't think about it. Keep fighting. And I'm just holding myself up against the bathroom and I could bar I couldn't even c hold my hands up.

And uh so then the fifth round was probably my best round because I was really a standing I was just a standing I I was virtually unconscious. And then they yellow's wife yells Tiempo. which means time in Spanish. And the second she wrote Templos when I hit the ground. So I got it by one second. And then I was so exhausted.

And have an asthma attack. I cr I I I had to I now I had to stand up. You had to bow out. And as soon as I died, I hit the ground again. Now everybody wants to congratulate me. I had to stand up again. We weren't allowed to have water. And so I crawled To the bathroom.

And John Doug doesn't tell the story but Murphy's probably getting mad at me for telling it. And when he came to he says That's not the sink you're drinking out of. Oh that's the toilet. I was drinking out of a T John T J toilet. T water toilet. And uh and I go, I don't care. I was so dazed and I got gonorrhea. Oh no. Yeah. But anyway, so Um that was Green Belt. So then I then the brown belt was ten two minute rounds.

And then that's yeah, and then of course on that one. I oh I train like a mad dog'cause I wasn't gonna have that that last experience. So I made that. And then from brown to black was such a jump it took me another ten years before I was able to take on the ten fighters. And just to give you a quick rundown of what my workout looked like to prepare for it.

I'd warm up with a four hour weight workout. Four hours. Four hours. And I would start minimum weight. All the way up to maximum weight. And I'd do as many I'd get to the maximum, I do weight lift as many times as I could, with a few seconds, but not many times as I could. Then I'd solely off just five pounds at a time from three hundred and from through three hundred pounds, three ninety five, uh times two ninety five, two ninety, all the way down.

to uh where I had just the bar, which was a forty five pound bar. And uh And then that and then I do that with every muscle group. Then I would do.

Five hundred kicks on the heavy bag. Yo ten uh ten roundhouse cakes with this thing, ten with this one, ten, ten, do a hundred of that. Do ten sidekick with this leg, ten sidekick with this thing, ten side another hundred, ten bat turn cakes, ten side whatever. I step up a cross high cake, but just did five different cakes. Five hundred times. Then my uh trainer, he would have a it would look like a motorcycle seat, but it's a bag.

And he would hold it. And uh And with his hand and then I would have to do a hundred kicks. In three minutes. And so I was simulating the three rounds, so I'm just bam bam bam bam bam punch kick, punch, kick, mainly kicking is that

Uh that ex that exhausts your oxygen. Supply faster than punching. That's why in kickboxing matches. They're required to throw a minimum of of I think six kicks or eight kicks. And that's because after you start getting tired, you just want to punch. Takes a fraction of the oxygen does to take to lift these big muscles up in the air.

And so I do that, I'd take a first I'd take a tw ten second break, do another hundred, ten other twenty second break, hundred, I'd do a thousand, I'd do it ten times, it'd be another thousand kicks. From there. I would do a five mile run and I lived in San Diego and there was hill they had big hills there. And I would w one of the hills is a mile and a half down. Mile and a half back up.

When I got to the top. I would sprint the distance of a house. And then run the distance, sprint, run, sprint. And then I would do ten Yeah.

quarter mile wind spends. And then I throw up. And then I'd go do my shows and I'd go perform. I'd perform at night. Then every other day I would go rounds. you know, Murphy Douglas would have me uh go.

you'll two uh five rounds, you know. Five rounds building up to it and sometimes two on one'cause you don't have time to to rest at that. And but that's that was uh and I I sustained that particular woo uh discipline for eight months and never said I overtrained. Yeah, I went too long. But my problem was asthma. Because uh yeah.

uh being asthmatic, uh you'll if I uh sometimes fear. can trigger an asthma attack. That's what happened. on that green belt that I described. Uh yeah, and you can't fight if you can't breathe. And so I had to train my mind.

To not Become afraid. Yeah. Fear can paralyze. You we can be so worried about doing the wrong thing that we do nothing. There's actually an English proverb that says a man that's afraid to make a mistake

is unlikely to make anything. In other words, totally worthless. Fire the bomb. Fear of failure. When left unchecked. Can actually lead to the failure we fear. Yeah. And so Um

I I just started like I said putting myself in positions and conditions To help my mind. Overcome. those effects. And I did things. Uh we just talked about the physical.

I did mental things like Alright. Eating live cockroaches, live grasshoppers. Um Uh.

Yeah. Yeah. The most absurd thing is rotten fish got to sat in the sun for a week. to uh in doubt you'll s you saw the where I eat the I chop down on the eyeball of the Mahi Mahi. And the thing is if you don't have

If you if you can't take it, you know the person would throw up. And the people that were watching almost throw up. Don't try this at home, K. Don't try this at home. This is a close track with a train profession. Yeah. It w it was just to train my Mine. To be able to take Whatever is being dished out. And if I can control my mind and body.

then I I can make it. And and and that triggers another thought real quick on the Uh go back to the Charles Bonnet syndrome, Charles Bonnet. And how how That can create strength. One of the ways I use it the most. And we haven't even mentioned.

Is in training. as what I um I can do tremendous numbers of reps. When I took my fourth degree black belt test, I was in my late four, I was forty seven or forty eight. I lifted two hundred and twenty two thousand eight hundred eighty eight pounds using three thousand one hundred and ninety reps. And the twenty four year old two hundred and twenty pound black belt who trained alongside me.

could not do 50% of the number of reps or weight. And that's because I don't get lactic acid build up. Because I would combine the mind with the body. Yeah, you see why people do this, they'll say, Sh come

Yeah, they're trying to convince their body to do it. You follow what I'm saying? Yeah. When you combine mind and body together, they're not doing that. And what I would do is when I get to the point of exertion. And I would then ch transfer it. I'd use my V CBS like a on a bench press. I would see a cable. I'm the bench press. I'd see a cable going up.

across of it, across two pulleys on the other end is as grill shaped thing or an Arnold Schwartz thing and grill it together, pulling on that thing, pulling that weight up. And I would focus on that image. Pulling the weight up. And during that moment I would no longer feel the stress as my muscles continue to press. And I have exercises for every I have a mental visual exercise I'll use for uh uh each exercise, like the quadricep extension, you know. You're you're in exertion when you're straightening your legs, right? And so what I would see in front of me is a big giant rubber band. When the brand is stretched down when the when the weights are down, and then it would the it would when the it would the rubber band would go up and it would just go wide, and that's when it's pulling the weight up. So I'd watch it and I would see it pulling the weight up. So when I'm doing the exertion is when I'd feel it the least. Another image like when I'm doing a uh ham like I'm on my back doing a tricep.

I would see a hammer falling. Okay. And when the hammer's falling is the least amount of effort, right? Yeah.'Cause the hammer the way the hammer's going down. But when I'm like this, so I'd see the hammer falling, and but that's that's when the tricep is being engaged. And I taught my wife. I uh when you I taught my wife this.

And And within a month's time, what she would do, I say, Well look at yourself in the mirror, your reflection. And when you get to exertion, like a venture uh military compress. Yeah. At the point of exertion. So you're you want to do We always do sets of fifty two reps. Oh when you get to a forty eight.

We then transfer that see that image. Of that reflection, pulling those weights up. And then And she Got to the point where she increased

Her muscular endurance. Firty percent in a month. time and she was already in top shape. Now I can give you an example of that. If you if we were standing if we wanted to stand up. Mm-hmm. Um

But I w like I w and of course now I'm s I'm sixty six. So I don't know if I I I used to have a a s a demonstration that I would do. Where I would bend the arm of the person. And then there's not there's only one person's arm I was not able to bend and do it doing this demonstration for forty years, and no one has ever bent my arm. But if you wanna stand up I can uh I don't know if this is sure, let's try it. I'm not gonna try to put your arm because I'm because if so get on this side of me.

But see y look at those muscles. No, and usually I put myself up a against a back, so I'm pinned in. Now I'm gonna have you put your hand arm right here. Okay. Your other arm here. Okay. Not not on the wrist that I wanted to put rest. And and your job this is what you all you're gonna do, is just bend this little elbow here. Okay. Yeah. Go ahead. Go ahead. And look, I'm not. Go, come on, come on. I'm not and I'm not doing any I'm not using any strength. Look at my hand. Yeah. Totally relaxed. Yeah. And I'll tell you how I did it.

Okay. It's is once again, it's creating mind and body together. What I did is I envisioned my arm as a fire hose. Yeah. Shooting out that fire hose is a thousand gallons of water a minute. You can't bend a fire hose, I'm sorry.

Yeah. Right. If you to think about a fire hose when the fire's when the w water water's shooting, you've never been to a fire hose. So I get that image in my mind I'm just shooting that fire hose. And uh and I've never had anyone ever bend my arm.

And yet Yeah, without that until I show them they g if they learn how to do that, then that can't win their arm, but before the but anyway, that's just kind of a little side side note but how I've used my CBS to uh create a lot of strength and Yeah, I also used it in my training with the cards. When I train when I when I analyze moves and break'em down.

And and what I would do, I uh I'm I'm just Transition. Yeah, just something else here randomly, but What I would do. And why I was able to put in so many hours is I would analyze the move.

So okay, I wanna I wanna second deal a certain way. So I've analyzed the move. Okay. Okay, I want the I want the I want no leaking and so I'd analyze what I want to do and I'd practice it. In slow motion. Till

Every exact element of the muscle memory Was firmly embedded in my brain. Okay. Then. I would turn it into a subconscious habit. We all have

Uh habits for work. Tapping the pen, right. Tapping their feet. That's idle energy wasted. It's like the an engine of a car running. Going nowhere. Just idling.

That's it's still energy expelled, right? So what I did is I turned I learned to take all that energy and funnel it. Into Just my hands and what's in my hands. And so that's why I would I would take it and I turn it into a subconscious habit.

And that move I would then set their own. That is it. Hundreds of times. Thousands of times. Tens of thousands of times, hundreds of thousands of times. Then maybe two or three years later I'll look down and Well.

By golly, I got it! And then and then and some of the things Vernon would say, that's not Possible to do. Um And in the

And so I would Figure it out, analyze it, show it to them and then Well what I loved discovering in the process of prepping for this conversation, and I want to put a button in the black belt test in a second, but that Vernon would describe to you

The ideal of how something would be performed. Even though Uh in reality he hadn't seen it executed that perfectly. and you with your powers of visualization and the way that you would

digest his teaching would then go and develop the ability to do what he thought could not be done. At least that's that's my understanding. That's exactly right. And And he did that for I had the privilege of being with Professor Vernon for seventeen years. In those first five, six, ten years.

Like you said, he would describe to me, you say, Richard. This is the way it has to has to be done. Your hands have to be natural. You don't want this deep grip. When you're going to deal with second. or a bottom. Your fingers need to be on the sides because it's more natural. That's more the way you're gonna see a gen uh your your general p person in the public.

Hold a deck of cards. And so you don't want to create any unnatural suspici by your actions. And so he would tell me, Okay, you have to be able to do it with those fingers on the side. And so, okay, fingers on the side. And you don't want you don't want uh any of this action here. So so I practice with my hand on the table. Yeah.

Without moving it. And so I would take The piece is what he said, and I would practice it and he he would actually tell me, he'd say, Feel my hands. Feel the position my hands are in. I'd feel his hands, okay, got it, got it. Okay, oh, okay, I got it. So I'd see the picture in my mind of what his hands.

We're showing me. never did it because it's an action. I really couldn't see him do the action because then my hands get in the way of him executing the action. But I knew the action of what he was showing. So in my mind I would see his hands. Visuali what he said.

This is the way it should be done. And then I would come up with it. and create it and then the next time he would see me, he'd go Watch this, watch this. Look at this, watch this action, perfect action. You did get all excited, you have all the other card guys come over and What's a perfect rubber, perfect rubber. Anyway, uh he was one of my critics at the time. But we became a good friend. Same with Tony Giorgio. And um

Uh but so that's what he would do is he tricked me. And it was only till years later that he told me he made them up. He just wanted to see what this obsessed kid would come up with. And uh And that's why my work is kind of It's mostly Ninety nine point nine percent of the gamblers and cardmen out there will tell you it's it's unique and separate. From the way any other person ma uh handles the cars.

And I y I I wanna tie up one one loose end with the black belt test just to flash forward because we we covered a lot of it, but Ten. Fresh fighters, ten rounds, you end up with a broken arm. Uh at at some point seventh round. In the seventh round. So you're fighting with

A broken arm. There's footage of this, of course, in the documentary, which I encourage everybody to see. And You get your black belt. There was coverage of

uh this experience. Of course there were there were some cameras but also there's a piece in was it the LA Times? Limes. Now Why did you my understanding is you did not You'd not like the piece or you'd not like the headline. Why is that? Well,'cause they use the word blind man earns black belt.

And at that time I was very stubborn. And um I was just stubborn and probably s self absorbed. And I wanted My work to stand on its own.

And I wanted to ruin it the way Terry Crook. John Douglas and the other his top other black boat. uh fighters did. That's why when they offered me a honorary black belt. He said, you put in your time, you put in your lumps. I said, no, I want to do it the way you did.

And then that's when I started the training like I described earlier, but it took me ten years and uh thirteen years and three months. in five days from when I started to when I finally got it from beginning to super nuts. And um but anyway, um Um Uh the fact that they had to put the word blind man earns black belt.

It to me it was like Yeah, I don't like the theme handicap makes good. I want the okay, I just made good because I did it. And it and and to be perfectly honest with you, I kept telling people I wanted to do it the way they did it. And people would say, but you didn't. And I go, Yes, I did. And it was literally, Tim.

Within the last six months. If someone said something That I understood what they said. When they said I didn't do it the way they did it. I did it way the way.

They couldn't have done it. Yeah. I was I never understood what they were saying because I was so pig headed about I wanted I wanted to do it the way they did it. But then when you flip it.

I I I finally got the message. I did it in a way that that they it was very unlikely that they or anyone else Would have had a A hard time doing if they could have done it at all. Oh, probably. Uh next to impossible if not impossible.

I I want to dig into the visualization because it seems to be Such a superpower, and I might ask you what you consider to be your superpowers, but this this this visualization and the CBS. And the uh a dittic memory that you mentioned really seem to coalesce to give you something incredible

abilities. Yeah, whether that's the feats of strength. Or Work. With the cards. Uh

You mentioned earlier that The way you see things when you're scanning or planning the construction the design and construction of three story uh patio or deck, for instance, is different from dreaming. And so that begets the question,

What is dreaming like for you? Ah, very good. Very good question. Mm. 'Cause you know, like you were saying, I see my subconscious in external space. So

Um Yeah, and it's just A constant Yeah.

stagnant situation of all these colours patterns just There. Until I want to bring them into play. It doesn't matter if it's Day, night, if my eyes are open.

Or clothes. I see the exact same thing. With my eyes. Uh covered up in a vault. I'll see these vivid bright colours when there's absolutely no way of light getting in.

Now when I dream In my dreams I'm never sight impaired. And I see I dream in full color. With audio and visual. And I see perfectly.

And everybody I see in those dreams is perfectly clear. Mm. Which I you know that that Uh someone brought that to my attention in some questions that I was asked. And uh

I I guess that's kind of unusual. But yeah, I'm n uh uh I I'm never like I said, part of the dream is never Yeah. I'm Part uh sighting party. Nor do I see any of the CBS Now if I wake up in the middle of the night say Um

And I had to take some Tylenol or something. uh from some surgery. I've had twenty four surgeries from all my high impact living. And um Medication when awake will turn everything into a

metallic colours. And usually a lot of times it's purple. This is if you wake up in the middle of the night. from some kind of uh in injury that I'm uh on. Medications turn it metallic. And it turns it uh Usually a purple, which is not is not a pretty

Purple to me. I don't like it. You mentioned maroon was one of your favorite colours. And then roll blue on the blue spectrum. What other favorite colors do you have? And did you have them before losing your sight or did you develop them afterwards? Uh I probably wasn't aware of Uh favorite colours before. Um so much as I am now because I see them.

All the time and And the the different shades depending on the time of year, depending on the particular day. Oh sometimes it's just really vivid blues and I just It's just beautiful sometimes. When I'm w out walking with my beautiful wife Kim.

And uh I my my CBS will create A skyline. Darker here. And I feel like the that's the skyline. And then it'd be lighter.

uh shades. To cre give the image of uh Yeah. First. Sky.

Okay. And then and then I go in. And I have to ask my wife. Is it still white out? 'Cause it it w uh it will stay there. And sometimes it's late in the night and I can't get that the I can't get rid of it. Sometimes it does can't bother me because I want that to go down because it's now night time. Um

So there are there are some uh times that it will be a bit of a distracting side. W what uh I have as a note to ask. I didn't want to get any of the details beforehand, but a note to ask you about your experience of wind. Oh. Yeah. But I I can see the wind blow.

Whenever I'm walking down the street with My with with cam or whatever. If the I w of course I automatically see the the images of of sh trees but they're more like clouds in the and they'll be green shapes and

Yeah colours to to replicate. You give the image of of trees. Okay, well whenever the wind blows, everything all my all my visualization things that I see will go with that wind. They will gust If it cuts, they'll move a little bit more. I if I do this. Everything just now just went.

If you tap if I tap my tie side of the head. Do you it everything just jerked over? And went back straight. Just weird little things. Like when I go in and uh I'm in a pool. My eyes are closed the whole time.

I know I know I don't have need to need my eyes open when I'm swimming. I don't have to worry about the chlorine and stuff. Right. And so when I'm above the pool There there's a sh a certain hue. le in other words a a a level of brightness of the color. When I go under the water I actually see myself going underwater and the hue changes the it deepens like putting on sunglasses. Oh sunglasses off. Sun glasses on.

And even as I made that image, my eyes were closed. I just all of a sudden things went darker and lighter. I can pretend that I'm Opening and cl when I open and close my eyes. It will. The hue is like uh pulling down a shade. that has a uh uh a sun block. Not a sun block, but sunglasses would be the best way to describe the is what the huge changes

And then now if I just pretend that I'm my eyes are closed the whole time, I'm pretending I'm opening and closing my eyes. It'll do the same thing. And relevance that had to anything, but it's just these little games. This is just a conversation between friends. Nobody nobody listening or watching. So I'm just following my own interest. And I wanna talk about Uh

The enjoyment of not relaxing. That's more said uh with a smile, but When we took a little break. To have some water. Uh you said To me, relaxing is not relaxing. And you talked about how being

Being told to relax or asked to relax is like being punished and put in the corner for misbehaving at school, uh for you. In that case, given Your Obsessive compulsive dedication to training to

Card mechanics. Uh movement. How do you replenish? H what what activities do you find Recharge your batteries.

And maybe you could just elaborate on to me relaxing is not relaxing. Okay. Yeah. Oh. Bring up a friend of mine who's like a brother. His name is Luke Coram.

Mm-hmm. He was the director of the film Delt that you mentioned. And And I'll just say something quick about the film. If it wasn't for Luke.

in particular probably I say eighty percent Luke and then Bradley and Russell, the producer and the writer. But Luke. was the one that just had the creativity. Yeah. If I if they would've l if they would've listened to me, and they listened zero to me, they did.

Uh that I would have screwed up the film. The the brilliance of that film is I I lay at at the feet of the director Luke. And he would tell me and he actually lived with me. He had his own place in my house when at at certain times Luke's room. And I never have my many times I didn't know the camera's on or off. And he would say, Well let's chill. Yeah, and you'll which I found out as word for relaxing.

And chill. I don't want to chill. And I said, relaxing? For me, relaxing is not fun. Relaxing is like when I was a kid and I was being punished by my parents as a punishment. I'd have to stand in the corner for an hour and just stare at the corner. To me, chilling is not fun. Chilling, relaxing is not fun. For me, relaxing is adventure.

And uh I would tell people and I would tell Luke. I'd say Don't worry about the End result.

When the film is done. It's gonna be a piece. It'll be what it is. And it will be finished. Enjoy the journey.

Okay. And look at every obstacle and every challenge and every hurt and pain that you come across. part of the adventure of the journey. When you read a book, You don't want a book that

Oh he went and he entered this Uh rest any one and then he entered that one. No trouble he won, and he climbed this mountain and he won. Uh yes boring. Yeah. Antagonist, protagonists.

And you have to have challenges, you have to have things that you have to overcome. So I would tell people, whatever the situation is, look at it as part of the adventure. I my livelihood almost came to an end. Five years ago. Well multiple times. Like I said, I've had Twenty-four surgeries. I had to recount them just last week going, what am I at twenty three, twenty two, twenty three, or twenty-four? I realized.

I've had I've two steel knees from all the years kicking. I took a shot here, roundhouse kick here. Uh first I did surgery and finally had to be replaced and just you know, millions of kicks just finally did'em in. I've had five hernia surgeries. I've had I did a back flip off my front porch land on my fifth disc on my b on my back. On the brick.

drove it out my belly button. I've had three back surgeries. And uh And then fortunately what finally and they and that's so complicated, they just doctors it's just They have a hard time with backs. And then I they have this thing called a neural stimulator, a Medtronic makes.

And I have that. And it short circuits the pain from the back to your brain. Amazing ever since that way my wife said, give our life back. We have we have this Table available, we have some cards.

Uh Would you like to like to show anything? Yeah. Uh you have a deck of cards there for yourself right? I do. Shuffle them up. Alright, we'll save this now. How amateur the shuffle. Yeah, usually. I can barely shuffle two hands. Well then use one. Yeah. I just showed you out.

Alright. Okay. All right, we're good to go. Switch deck with me. All right. Okay. There you go.

No. In poker, you've heard of like d w wild cards, like Deuces are wild, uh baseball have multiple wild cards other games. So just cut a card, that would be the wild card. Just cut off half the deck. I'm gonna move. There's one card left over here. I can put it put on my deck or yeah. Okay. Just cut the deck in half here. Okay. Tell them when you got it.

Okay, and just to make it more random, just say any random number. Three, four, five, seven, anything you want. Six. Six. One, two, three, four, five, six. What's that card? Queen of diamonds. So the queens will be the wild card, okay? And you just shuffle these cards, right? I did. Now have you ever played poker for money?

Yeah. Let me ask this. Have you ever played in the casino? Or have you ever wondered? When I play in a casino am I getting conned. I have lost in a casino. Okay. So that thought has crossed your mind. Am I getting conned? Now I'm gonna show you. You just hand me a randomized deck and I'm gonna do this in an interesting way. And the high state games they'll cut between every shuffle because that buries the top and bottom half of the deck. I'll give the deck a little riffle.

And there will people like to cascade the cards into them. You have a cut? So I'm telling you what I'm doing as I do it. And I shuffle. Did everything look legit?

Looked legit. And not a movie you saw was. So you're already in trouble. Now I'll show you not a move I saw. Not a one. Now I'll show you how fast I could uncut that deck. What's that card? That is the two of clubs. The two of clubs. So they'll pass the deck to the right to be cut. Now the deck is no longer cut. So she's still on top? Yeah.

Watch again. Watch again. I'm showing you how fast I can uncut the deck. The deck is no longer cut. That was about a half a second. Yeah. Now you've heard of Texas Holding. I have. Okay. Well would you let a hand of hold'em? And then hold'em they have what's called a Cut card or a burnt card to put a card in the deck on a face up card.

Now after the fact you're gonna tell me Keep everything off the table here. Give me a full. After the fact you're gonna tell me how many people step up to my whole room table. Let's pick a number five or six because we don't have a lot of room. Uh five. Five players. One, two, three, four, five. One, two, three, four, five, burn. And we always call the flop. And what are those three cards?

We got the King of Hearts, the Two of Hearts, and the Queen of Clubs. Deuces are not wild, but we did see the Queen's was your card. So that means there's a pair of kittens on the table where there's a burn. In a turn, what's that card? That's true. Three kings because the queen is a wild card. What's that card? It's a queen.

Right now we have four. Okay, just get out of our burnt card. And you're my partner sitting over here and Hand number five, let's see what you have in the pocket. What's that? What's that? That's queen.

So in the poker you would have Uh five of a kind, five kings, or you'd have a a royal flesh. Yeah. Depending on how you wanted to play the hand. You killed them.

Yeah. Slaughtered them, beat them, whipped them big time. Okay. Now we shuffle that deck. Okay. I'll do I'll I'll show you how far I can push the envelope. So I'll shuffle this one. And I think I think we got two cards that turned up on that one. Okay. That's your job. Make sure that one's all legitimate? Yeah. Okay. And then

I'll switch with you? Yeah. There we go. Okay. Yeah. And you can make sure everything's legitimate on that one. Yeah.

Oh get the deck cut. And we'll play my favorite game, seven cards done. This will take a couple of minutes to unfold, but it's Interesting now. We have a deck of cards shuffled by Tim. And we'll we'll we'll say with the same number of players. You choose, four players or five, you choose.

Where do you want to sit number one, number two, number three, or number four? I'll be number one. Number one, right out of the shoot. I'm getting ready to I'm dealing with cart in slow motion. The hand number one. Before I continue, take these death. This deck. Mix them up.

Don't give me the whole deck back. Just pull out any random part of that deck and put them in my hands. Just do something quick and just stuff just a couple of cards. No more than a couple but to get about. Just a step. So I'm gonna work with whatever. Whatever you give me, okay? Tim just handed me back a random stack of cards. We're playing the only card to play on hand number two.

Player number three. And player number four. You're number one, slow motion, watch carefully. There's your card. And we go player two, three.

for now we have what are call the door cards means the face up cards. What's that card? Jack of space. One, player two, player three. Therefore your number one. What's that card? Ace of clubs. Number two, number three, number four. You're number one was that card.

S of diamonds. Mix them up. Whatever you're the boss. Okay. And just have any part of that deck you want. So you're doing everything you can to screw things up. Okay. And you just Okay, that's like five cards less than the last time you had me. Okay, we have player two.

Player three. Player four. And so far we have three cards face up. Yes. That's right. It was that card. Queen of diamonds. Wild card. Well, do it again. Mix them up. Have me any part of the deck you want.

So you're shuffling, cutting, you choose how you chose how many players, you chose where you want to sit, you hand me any random part of the deck. Oh my gosh, getting stingy. Player two. Player three. Player four, and we have what's called down and dirty. I'm now dealing a card off the top.

to to uh Tim's first position. Two, three, four, put that with the rest of the stack. Okay. What? You have in your hand we're playing seven cards, Dead

High Chicago. That means high spade in the whole splits of the money. So let's see what you have. What's that card? Queen of D. A wild card. So we'll put it over here and

What's that? Ace of the would be a pair of bases'cause the Queen's Wild what's that? Ace clubs. That equals three aces. What's that? This is uh Jack of Spades. What's that?

That's a ten of spades. Ten, ten jack, ace. What's that? As the queen of spades. Another wild card. So right now you have four

Two Aces and two queens, right? That's right. So you right now in p in h that would equal four aces and the best possible hand in wildcard is five aces. We're playing high spade in the whole split supply, what's that? It's a spirit.

Five Ace is the best possible hand you can get in poker. There's five aces. You shuffled. You cut. You chose how many players you wanted, you chose where you wanted to sit, and you met kept mixing them up and you didn't even give me a full deck. You could honestly say that Turner doesn't play with a full deck. That turner does not play with a full deck. I doubt you the perfect can in poker. That's incredible.

That's regrettable. It's incredible. That's regrettable. Amazing. Alright. But that shows you how far I can push in that particular thing to be and and I know this I and I don't mean to sound boastful,'cause it's hard to talk about when you're asking people asking questions about yourself, it's hard to talk about yourself. And not sound bad.

But Vernon, when he first saw me do that, I said, Professor, what do you think about combined this and this and this Yeah. You can't stop not possible. I can't can't be done. Yeah. You said He said you can't do it because three reasons. One, your brain can't r m respond that fast.

Your hands cannot be that sensitive and you would break rhythm. Put those put those all cards back together from the stack. Okay, she said that's not possible. And I I were at the Magic Castle and for ten minutes I sat there. He was sitting at the bar and I was standing next to him and I was depressed. Pretends I think they go.

This is the ultimate. This is the perfect way. This is the And I thought. And he said it can't be done. Then all of a sudden I remembered. But I can do it. I said, Professor, come watch my show. And he came out the show afterwards, Roger, what the hell are you doing in there? I don't understand what the hell you were doing. I said, Remember when you said you can't combine this and this? That's what I'm doing. How the hell you can do that? And he goes, come here, watch us, watch us. And everybody for the next

Eighteen months every time I was there. You'd have me suffer the cards, how many players you want? Where do you want to sit? Watch this, watch it. Over and over. And two years later, he goes, Stone don't understand how you can do that. And he knows exactly what I'm doing. And exactly how I'm doing it. Yeah. That's amazing. I uh I so I have uh these all the cards are facing the same way. I guess two decks worth of cards. I don't know how they're split up. Yeah, but fifty two fifty two is the same. Great, great. Why not? Who knows how many. Roughly roughly fifty two there, I suppose. Oh, wonderful. So you now you

Uh just just because it's just mentioned before we start recording, you uh Audit cards. Is that right? Or yeah. Analyze. US playing card company. Is the largest

uh maker of cards in the United States. And uh they just m merged with uh Car Monday, which is the biggest card maker. They've been starting making cards eighteen seventeen, sixty-five, and US playing card coming in since the eighteen they've been around for For a hundred and fifty years. And bicycle is the most recognized pack of cards in the world. It has been for over a hundred years.

And In nineteen ninety eight nineteen eighty eight. I got some cards they were so bad. I told them these are not the cards you've been making. I can prove prove that you are subcontracting your paperwell, blah blah blah. Anyway they signed a rep, I proved they said he was been proven right. Then in nineteen ninety three they started miscutting their cards.

I turn the things over I said these are not the cards you been making for a hundred years, I can prove it. And at that time they were getting flat from the casinos. The casino were not Not. uh happy with the cards. There was something wrong with them. And I'm the one that identified the problem. And uh and that was the but he was going through the wrong side of the card.

Which affected the integrity of the card and the the ability for it to to to properly be be handled properly. And uh so they they finally put me on retainer in the nineteen nineties. And uh they I help them make the best card in the world. And they do make the best cards in the world. And uh just to give you an idea how far.

Oh. the their director of research and development would push me. He would send me out. Okay, usually it was two dozen decks or like twenty decks. But I'll make it real small so you guys have let's say six decks. Okay.

So there's W it would be if it was two dozen it'd be There would be twelve pairs. Okay. Twelve pairs.

So we w we small reduce our our illustration to down the six p six steps, there's three pairs. And one of the decks. Three pairs of decks. Th three three pairs. Yeah. Six cards. Six decks. Which is three pairs. Okay. So we're down to six decks, which would be three pairs. And then when I say pairs. Um

Each the the the each pair was RAM Together. That was a particular run. Of that. Deck. Okay. Okay.

And so They would they would say one of the They just changed. One of the chemicals in the code. This is probably the the most elaborate one that I did. Just one of the chemicals was changed. Not the whole chemical, not the whole process. One of the chemicals was changed. in their coding.

And so Not only did I have to say uh deck one and three are a match, two and four are match, and five and six are a match. And it was five and six That had the chemical change. And so not only did I and and they had those cards

coded when I say coded uh uh uh secret code like Q seven five two. Nine one six J. Which That was their key.

in Cincinnati to understand these two are the pair, these two are the pair, these two are the pair. I did not have a key. Right. You know, but I just had these random numbers that I'd not put down in my report. My son Asian would tell me, Well, this one dad is J seven five Two

uh six seven J four and which meant absolutely nothing to me. And then I'd find out the six seven J four and they would they were the match and so I'd have to pair them up, match them up, and then analyze The snap. the the embossing depth, the cut. The caliper. um the what I call the right period and all these things and which one is the better card.

And uh then they would take that information and fine tune their machines. To uh help. Yeah. That uh that that they make which are by far the finest cards you can buy. No. So I know we have um just a little bit of time left. Um

And uh we're practically neighbors since you're in San Antonio. Very, very close by. Uh I'm I'm curious to know. And this uh this this is sometimes a difficult question, but um I'll just I'll ask Uh

If you could put A message quote. Anything non commercial on a billboard to get a message out to millions or billions of people. Is there is there anything that comes to mind that you might put on that billboard? Yeah. In the United in America.

We have Opportunities. Success depends upon the use we make of those opportunities. Mm. That would be one.

Not going down. Not going down. Not going down. Another one would be but consider every obstacle that may sure every obstacle challenge hurt Pain.

in your life as part of the adventure of life. That's what gives li gives life spice. Yeah. Uh oh and then and circling back. Two

Um When I was talking about the surgeries. And I my career was almost at an end. I was at Penn and Teller's Theatre, I was gonna be on their show. Uh their fourth season.

And a third season. And I was in the gym, the real gym. Or else with my friend Doug Gorman. And Uh I said, Okay, I paid seventeen dollars for my workout.

Yeah, that's all ridiculous work out, Paris. And so I was I as soon as I got in there, when those benches that you set'em up upright upright like this does like you doing standing curls, or you know, you sit in your curls, or you can recline it back for like tr you know triceps or lay it all the way back. Do you sit up on there or adjustable bench. Adjustable bench. And it was propped like this. At about forty five degree. Yeah, forty five degree and I couldn't I pulled that thing. I couldn't get it to go down. And I thought It was buttted up against the wall. And so I took that bench. And I moved it over like this and

Wham. My thumb is here. And it was you know those commercial great inventions. The steel bars that went right around here and the steel bars That That was the frame of advance just came down.

And crushed my thumb. What did I do? I know he's crazy and your people that are listening and watching say, Yeah, he's a little on the crazy side. And oh b okay, don't let me get off track on here. But did you know I'm a cer I'm I'm a certified hotball? Certified odd. I am certified. I d I did see your card. Yeah, well, explain. You've heard of Ripley's, believe it or not, right?

Yes. Uh in nineteen eighty four I was on the TV series Ripley's But hosted by Jack Collins. I'm also an exhibit in the second largest Ripley's in the country. And I'm in the twenty fifteen issue of Ripley's Believe It or Not Book of IPop and Oddities. Right. Received a certificate. I am a certified oddity. So you might be an oddball, Tim. I'm certified. You're certified. I'm a certified eyeball. Okay, so this so this contraption comes crashing my thumb. And I called Doug, I said, bring me a buck of advice and don't ask any questions. And I think I saved seventeen dollars for this workout, I'm not gonna so I ice for three minutes, worked out for three minutes. Ice for three minutes, worked out for three minutes. Face when I worked out

Oh my gosh, my thumb was as big as my big toe. I go, I ran upstairs, grabbed my cards and went Oh my gosh. I can't feel so I call the producers Lincoln and uh Lincoln and Andrew, they were the executive producer of the show. I said, Mike, um I had a little trouble, um uh a bench crush my thumb. I think I could do the first and third part of what we rehearsed, but I don't think I do the second He said, Get down here. He says

You're going to the her emergency room. They sent me to the emergency room and they got in there and uh they first thing they did they poked a hole in they said a fountain of blood shot out. I ended up having to go into surgery. And you're And because the I thought this may be the end of my career.

And Luke. And the boys. We're flying in to get some footage with Ben and Teller for Delt. Yeah. And they were in air when this happened. So they land thinking they're coming into five pen.

And about Yeah. Whatever they were gonna ask them.

I just got crushed. And uh the instead they're filming me showing my thumb that's Every shade of black and blue but the color is supposed to be. Anyway, so I ended up

In surgery. And I thought. Okay, if this is the end of my life. I don't want to be I told the surgeon. Do not I don't want to be out.

Not wanna be I want fully conscious. I've went through multiple surgeries. And I I'll just shuffle the cards with my other hand while you work on this one, and that'll just that'll that'll keep that'll be my anesthetic. And so he thought I was nuts. And you can watch it. I said, I wanna film it too. So if this is the end of my career, I want footage.

And uh so they said, Okay, well you just put it on a C ho sell of business, he can film it. And it and you can go on YouTube. Crush dealing thumb feature and crush dealing thumb One is the short version, one's long but long version, which is it's on YouTube. Press dealine thumb is the way you'd look it up. But it but after one yeah. It's graphic. Because he

Takes. I supp Takes a spoon. And pops my

thumb open like a hood of a car. Then he takes it, he s cuts it open, and he's squeezing the butt and we're talking the whole time back and forth. And I'm shuffling cards and they they go back and forth, shuffle and the and the thumb and and we're talking about this and And I said, Man, this is so cool. And he goes, Why don't people want to do do this? He says, They go schizoid. People go schizophrenic when they see just go through something like this. He said, I had to be totally unconscious before I did it. I just had a hangover bruise. This is a hand, Doctor Talking. Anyway, but Uh but I that that gets back to, yeah, I am a certified oddball. So you so you have your thumb popped open like the hood of the car and we'll we'll link to those videos in the show notes at Tim Dotblogs, we will be able to find all of those videos. And

Uh what happened after that? Did you meet with Penn and Teller? Or No Lincoln Andrew Lincoln Andrew said, You'll come back for our fourth season. Don't worry about it right now, take care of your thumb. It literally took To the day before my thumbnail came back because they didn't know if it was gonna take, or I go and grew out another one, or I was gonna n end up with no thumbnail law. Unfortunately, I grew out a new one. And it was literally Friday before that my manicures Finally got the last part of the w wiggly woggly looking thumbnail to be match up. And I went on and I started to film it on the following Monday so it took almost a year to the day.

And um And so I I got on their show and had a blast. It was uh and I fooled them faster than anybody in the history of their show'cause it was really fun. And I And pen and tail are just Amazing performers. They are just Tom Marks.

And tower is so funny and people don't realize it. And I if you watch on the show And I d I I I I'm told this afterwards. Staring staring at what I'm doing and and he's trying to say he'll bring down the trophy now and over the headpiece Don't be that don't we we want Rich to do his entire act. And then and then beforehand they said, Richard, you gotta tell us how you do this, so we can make a judgment. This is their judges, Johnny Thompson and uh and Michael Cose. I said, Well, you know DeVern and I are the only ones that really know this stuff. We know that we gotta make some judgment. I said, Okay, watch. I showed them in slow motion.

what I was doing I showed and they go, My God, it really isn't possible. And so then what Pam hears over his head, this is what I was told. Is Don't uh he stood up, they were supposed to I was supposed to have a six minute interview with uh Alison while they discussed how to do it and then of course they had it down to one minute on one broadcast and they go Um Uh they said over the head but don't ask us, we don't know how Ellie did it. And so then Penn turns around and says, We have nothing to say. You fooled us.

And then the fun the cool part was I walk off stage with Pim and I hear this And this is exactly how you talk. Ret F F F I said who's that?

It's me, Teller. You said it was so wonderful. To be so completely and thoroughly Astonished. I've never seen anything like that in my life. And I thought

They say, let's get some selfies. And then the really fun thing was at midnight I I get a call They tell her they said, Tell him wants to know if we can come up and get a sign deck of card from you. I said, This is backwards. I'm supposed to ask it now for for autographs from them. And uh I said, Does Penn want one to this? Oh would you Pen would love it. Anyway, so that was that was kind of a cool really cool thing and and like I said there are Yeah. Extraordinary. Extraordinarily talented and extraordinary.

talents. And I was so honored that uh that they like Delt and that they tell actually wrote one of the on the Film posters. Oh yeah. Very well earned. Yeah. And the h the entire story, I mean this is this is a perfect way. to wrap up because that entire story Makes me think back to

Tony Giorgio early on. And what w what was he saying? Don't make the money. Won't get the money. Now later though. Later though. What did he what did he say? In two thousand one. I just finished my show with the castle and there's Tony. And he and I battle each other.

For twenty years, twenty five years. And um They said, Richard, Tony's here to see you. And there was a what's called the Vernon seeds, where Vernon had Vern Corn, that's where Tony was seed, because Vernon had passed away nine years, ten years before. And um

And they had one seat across. waiting for me to sit down. All these top card guys are standing there waiting. They want another battle between Giu and Tony. Giorgio and Turner. Giorgio and Turner. They always they'll always have these showdowns like gunfighters. And so I didn't want to have any part of it. And I said, No just stand there. Finally said, Richard, Tony was waiting then finally I thought to myself, You know what?

Tony. Was mean and hard on me. But I have to credit least half of my accomplishments to him being my antagonist and I thought

And I thought. Okay, and I said Tony Um I just want to thank you. For all your years. of encouragement. You were hard on me, you were divisive at times.

But People respect you because you do the real work. And you could do the real work. And because you pushed me hard, you made me better. And I want to thank you for that. And he goes, Why, thank you, Richard. That's very nice of you. Did you ever get that center deal down and

And of course he knew I did. I said, would you mind showing us? So now I sit down now for the next two and a half hours. We're doing what everybody wants in after every uh They he turned that'll get the money. That'll get the money. And then he actually One to he actually proposed He said you we have the perfect scam.

The perfect threesome. He said. I'll tell the people you're a high stake gambler. And but you can't see, but you love to play hold'em. I'll be the person to tell reads the cards to you. in the gaming world that understands your work.

He said. Yeah, you we have a third agent. third part of the crew that you'll do the good hands to. And so from the guy who said never get the money actually propose us putting together t as a team.

And uh and Hustley together. And and then I actually have a handwritten letter, five page. Handwritten letters one of my best treasures from Tony Giorgio. And uh and then emails that say, Love Tony. So it went from Won't get the money to just

Talking nasty and mean and Times that the council here had to be Taken out of the castle in ways he didn't wasn't Pleasant to him. Uh to uh

to become an a very dear friend and I actually I have the privilege of writing. One from one of the magazines says obituary because I had a thirty nine rela year relationship with him from From fighting to to earning his respect. And really quickly that came from my d first director, a man named Steve Terrell.

who was a TV and movie star back in the fifties and early sixties. And he was I was the th the theater company called the Lambs Players from nineteen seventy two to seventy eight. And one of the things he would tell me. is he would well on stage he'd watch me and I'd look be looking out of the corner of my eye. Remember we talked about that? So I had no forward vision. So I'm talking to my character and I'm looking over here. He said, Richard You need to

Y it looks odd for you looking off this side. I know that you can't see the where the shadow is if unless you turn your head to the side. He said. Just look at the voice. And he taught me how to square my head towards the voice and give the impression that I could see them. He said, Uh you've seen the actor who played the part of a z blind person, you flip the revolts. You're a blind person, you play the part of an uh of a sighted person. And uh and he said. And if you, he says, he was watching me practicing before and after every scene, he says, you love cards.

If you become the best card man in the world You will earn the respect of your worst enemies. And uh and then that was the case with Tony Giorgio. He was uh the guy who was an enemy. He was my big wor it was my nightmare every time I went to the castle, if we ran into each other. to becoming a a very dear man.

Yeah. And uh I mean that's that sounds like a another billboard. So if I could put if I could put up a billboard for you, that's what it would say. That'll get the money. And uh this has been so fun. We didn't even get into your hustling stories and uh uh this this entire prep has been an embarrassment of Rich's so I hope this isn't uh the last time that I see you. Hopefully we get to spend some more time together. You name it. Well if I'm up here I'll let you know I'm coming. Any time you want to visit or do something again. I'm uh your I my it'd be my honor honor and privilege to hang out together, even if it's to go have

A protein shake. Protein shake, or maybe I can just get my ass handed to me in the gym or b or maybe maybe a bit of both. And uh what a pleasure to spend time with you finally in person, which I've wanted for so long. And people can find out all about you. Richard Turner52, the number 52, RichardTurner52.com. on social and I'll link to all of these in the show notes as well. YouTube.com forward slash ASAT52. That's A-S A. T. fifty two and then also YouTube.com.

Forward slash Richard Turner fifty two. We'll link to all of this. Uh for speaking, you're rep by AP B Speaking Bureau. And uh that's one of my favorite things to do now is For some reason people are inspired and my wife says, People want to hear your story. And I always want to just sh uh be an entertainer. But I have to say I the I am really blessed that I have the privilege of speaking and Entertaining some of the most amazing companies in the

On the planet. And uh I can't wait to see what you do next. Uh y you are also, of course, featured in Delt? which has at least last I checked a ninety five percent on Rotten Tomatoes. And uh it is uh one of my favorite documentaries I've seen. in uh certainly the last five years. It's it's just spectacular. And uh

I am greatly inspired by you, slightly terrified of you, and uh I look forward to to watching your further ongoing adventures and um hope to uh hope to have a protein shake in the near future. But uh thanks very much for coming. Really appreciate it. It's my pleasure, Tim. It was a pleasure to be with you and I'm honored as well. Thank you, sir. And uh for everybody watching or listening.

А ви ало та линк ту. in the show notes and many resources. We also have, of course, the video if you're listening via audio, which you can check out at youtube.com forward slash TimFerris, or just go to Tim.blog and you'll find it there. And for the show notes, all the links just go to Tim.blog forward slash podcast. type in Richard Turner. And bam, we could be split. you'll have what you need. And until next time, be safe.

Train hard. Practice perfectly if you're gonna practice. And thanks for listening. Thanks for watching. Hey guys, this is Tim again. Just a few more things before you take off. Number one, this is Five Bullet Friday. Do you want to get a short email from me? Would you enjoy getting a short email from me every Friday that provides a little morsel of fun before the weekend? And Five Bullet Friday is a very short email where I share the coolest things I've found or that I've been pondering over the week. That could include favorite new albums that I've discovered. It could include gizmos and gadgets and all sorts of weird shit that I've somehow dug up in the the world of the esoteric as I do. It could include favorite articles that I've read and that I've shared with my close friends, for instance. And it's very short. It's just a little tiny bite of goodness before you head off for the weekend. So if you want to receive that, check it out. Just go to fourhourworkweek.com. That's fourhourworkweek.com all spelled out and just drop in your email and you will get the very next one. And if you sign up,

I hope you enjoy it. This episode is brought to you by Inktel. and I've used them personally. Ever since I wrote the four hour work week, I've been asked over and over again how I choose to delegate tasks, how I do AB20 analysis, and so on. At the root of many of those decisions is a simple question, actually two questions. Number one, how can I invest money to improve my quality of life? I use that in investing as well. The second, how can I spend a little money or moderate money to save significant time? Inktel is one of those investments. They're a turnkey solution for all of your imaginable customer care needs.

I used Intel during the launch of the Four Hour Body, which was very, very involved, and they provided 24-7 customer service for my land rus campaign. because it was critical for me to take care of every person who purchased my books and participated. This allowed me to focus on the things that I am better at, my strengths, like the marketing plan that we'd worked on for six months implementing that. Inktel trains their experienced customer service reps to know your business and your products inside and out and make your customers raving fans. They answer more than a million customer service requests every year. And they can do so across all platforms. including email, phone, social media, text, and chat. Leaving your customers with poor service or just mediocre service, which, by the way, in a competitive pool is a huge liability. Long wait times or unanswered messages carries a massive cost and risk to your business. Intel removes the logistics and headaches of this type of communication, allowing you to focus on your strengths and grow your business.

It can be a real competitive advantage, and I see many, many e-commerce companies and tech companies thinking of customer service as a good enough checkbox or an afterthought. And just like Airbnb is designed in innovative ways to be a competitor and to win, you can do the same thing with customer service. So as a listener of this podcast, you can get up to$10,000 off, it's a big discount.$10,000 off your startup fees and costs by visiting Inktel.com or So check it out. For more info, go to Inktel.com, I-N-K-T-E-L dot com forward slash Tim. This episode is brought to you by Nulo Pet Food, an independently owned company out of Austin, Texas that delivers the very best pet nutrition with high meat, low carb recipes for dogs and cats. I am super stoked about this sponsor. I had no idea they were based. You know?

but I found NULO through a number of friends of mine and veterinarians. It's what I feed my own dog, Molly. And when I switched Molly over to NULO, that's N-U-L-O, a couple of years ago, it not only made an immediate difference in the way she looked, her coat, for instance, is much softer and much shinier, I could also tell it made a huge difference in how she felt and performed. day to day. So I have Nulow all over the place. There's a bag of Nulo about 30 feet away from me in the office where I sometimes feed Molly when she comes here. I have Nulow at home. I have Nulo in gallon size bags for travel. Nulo is always with me and Molly. She loves how it tastes because Nulo Pet food has a lot of meat in it, and I can't really imagine feeding her anything else at this point. If you have a pup and you've been thinking about upgrading their food quality in 2020, check out Nulow.com slash Tim. That's n-o.com slash Tim to see some of Molly's favorite. Favorite products. By using the promo code TIMTIM, you'll also get 50% off any trial size bag on their site. So two things to remember, NULO.com slash Tim and then promo code TIM.

As good pet parents, it's up to us, it's up to you. Douggy parents, cat parents, to get the nutrition piece right for them. So check out Nulow.com slash Tim and commit to feeding your pets better food this year. They'll love you for it and you'll love what it does for them. So one more time, that's Nulow.com slash Tim.

What you see above is a preview of the first minutes. One unlock costs 3 credits and covers this episode forever: full segment and word-level timestamps on this page, plus .txt, .srt, .vtt and word-level JSON downloads, as many times as you like.