I'm Nicole Lappin, the only financial expert you don't need a dictionary to understand. It's time for some money rehab. Okay, money rehabbers, what do a magician and Sam Bingman-Fried have in common? They can both make your money disappear. Okay, so I'm not going to quit my day job, but today I'm talking to a guy who did quit his day job to pursue magic. Not only can Oze Perlman, a. K. A. The Wall Street Mentalist, make your money disappear, but he can also do much cooler tricks like turning ones into 100s. I would love to know that trick, please and thank you. Today, I talk to him about how he left his comfy finance job to take a bet on himself and what steps he would recommend anyone else take before making the same leap themselves. And for the grand finale, Oze did a trick for me over Zoom that blew my mind. I was dying, dead, deceased. It was fucking crazy. I'm also going to post this video on our Instagram @moneynews. So if you don't already, follow us to make sure you can see it first. Not over I'm selling this, I promise. Oze Perlman, welcome to Money Rehab.

Thanks for having me on, Nicole.

So excited to talk with you. You are a mentalist, but you began your career at Merrill Lynch. That's right?

I did. They call me the Wall Street Mentalist now. So which path your life takes you in, I never would have predicted.

Fascinating. Two of my favorite things smushed together. Obviously, being a mentalist is so fascinating, and I want to get there and even put you to the test. But We're on Money Rehab, of course. And because I'm a nerd, I want to hear about your Merrill Lynch time first. So what were you doing there? What drew you to Wall Street?

So I didn't have any idea of what I wanted to do. I think a lot of people, late teens, 20s, I had no clue. I started in computer engineering, which I didn't like at all. The first time I had to write a 3000-line program, I go, This is not for me. But I had a very good mathematical mind. Even when I was a kid, I would tabulate when I was eight years old, how much the pizza would cost with the tax, 8%. My parents were like, How do you know this? Before it would ring up. I just love doing that stuff. I switched to electrical engineering. I got an internship with Merrill Lynch. Then lo and behold, it turned into being an associate, an analyst there initially. I worked in technology, so I was a project manager, if you will, that helped the people doing finance, the investment bankers. So I was not really directly in finance, but I was, call it lateral. I started learning more and more about the business because I was helping them manage some of their projects and buying servers.

And then you left Merrill, a big institution, to take a big bet on yourself. Being a mentalist was your side hustle, and then you turned it into your main hustle. Can Can you explain or paint the picture of that time and how you made that decision to go out on your own?

I got to that point where I was so busy every weekend I was working. After work, I would go work at restaurants, and I was the magician at the restaurant. So I had a real mind for sales and the fact that I knew who my target market was, and I marketed to them. I wasn't going to go do stuff at a Chuckie Cheese because I didn't want to do shows for kids. I wanted to do shows for adults. And I was doing this on the side. And I think I came to a point where I didn't know that I could do this for a living, but I just was so busy. And I had an actual aha moment with the CFO of my company where he didn't know I was hired internally. I was at a party. I did something for Merrill Lynch, and I did a trick. Speaking of money rehab, where I take five $1 bills, I snap my fingers, they turn to five hundreds. And this guy, his name is James Gorman. He's the CEO of Morgan Stanley. Yeah. Says to me, and he's Australian. He goes, what? He goes, we got to have you working here, mate.

And everyone's laughing. And I go, I do work here. And he thought it was a joke. He thought it was joking. That's amazing. And I go, no, man, I work in your global technology service. And he goes, and he literally looks me in the eye. And you know you have those moments in life where I can see it. He looks me in and goes, what are you doing working here? And it's like, the CEO of the company, my boss's boss's boss's boss's boss I guess your interest in magic, in misdirection, I suppose predates your interest in Wall Street, right?

I was reading that you were performing at kids' birthday parties when you were a teenager.

Yeah. So I was doing this since I was a teenager. When I was 13, I got into it. I saw a magician. I was blown away. And then I got every book. I read it cover to cover, and I was not even 100%, 150% into it.

And then how did the mentalist stuff happen?

So mentalism is a specialty, right? It's a subset within magic. So magic is all about fool your eyes. Mentalism, while fooling is a part of it, is taking you on a journey through your mind because there's no props. You don't need a deck of cards. What you need is to know how people behave. It's almost like behavior like a economics. When you see somebody who's really sharp, they know the way the market moves because they know that people, individuals, act rationally. Groups act irrationally. So I know how to predict people's behaviors in certain instances. I know how to influence them. I can take you on a journey of showing that I know how you think, and I can predict what you'll do before you even do it in a lot of instances.

I can't wait to experience that myself. But before we get to that, did you think about your experience in building your brand as you were leaving Meryl, or did you make it up as you went along? Is there anything you would wish to known then when you first took the leap?

Oh, my God, so many things. So at the time when I went for this and I said, I'm going for it. There's no playbook to be a mentalist. There's no book that says, Here's how you become a star that I've ever found. You got to make it up as you go along, like you said. So I think one of the key things in life is find the people who have done what you want to do. How did they get there? And I think that unless you ask them, you'll never know. I reached out to a lot of magicians I saw on TV. I would do good old fashioned email or call someone on the phone or try to find somebody who knows them and work your network. The next thing I started doing early on is you don't want those pie in the sky goals of, oh, I want to be on TV. That's a ridiculous goal. Say, I want to be on this show within the next 9 to 12 months. How do I do that? How do I that and start looking at patterns and say, well, who books the show? A TV producer.

How do I get in touch with them? Or even better, how do I have them get vouched for by somebody who knows them well? If somebody knows you really well, is blown away, you find out, oh, my God, I the producer of Ellen, put me in touch. Now you've got a qualified lead. Honestly, most of my job was not entertainment. It was sales and marketing. I realized that very early on, my goal really wasn't to be the best entertainer. It was to be very successful. Those are different. Obviously, if you have a great show that's terrific, but there's a lot of people with great shows you've never heard of because they didn't market it effectively, they didn't promote their brand effectively. They did a lot of things, I don't want to say wrong, but they didn't realize what the laser Their focus was to achieve their goals. And you have to write those goals down. People don't do that, I find. I did.

And how did you figure out the best way to sell yourself, so to speak?

So that's a great question in two regards, which is not how do you sell yourself, but what is yourself? So what was my product? And it took me years to figure that out, honestly. But now what I really sell to companies is memorable experiences and a value that goes beyond entertainment. I'll give you a great example. I did a show recently, a pharmaceutical company. Let's say you have an incoming CEO, this pharmaceutical company. This CEO was there for three months. They had a merger. The culture is a little bit shaky. Some people got let go. This is a meeting where people are on edge. And this new CEO, people are more scared of than like this person. So what I did was I brought them up. I did a fun trick with them, made them look like a star. I humanized them. They showed all of a sudden that they took their armor off and everyone loved it. And they loved it, too, because at the end of that meeting, everyone came up to them and go, oh, my God, how did he do that with you? And did you know were you in a...

And suddenly people that never would have spoken to this person, this new CEO, went up and they had a conversation piece and opened up. And I got an email from that person the next day being like, you have no idea what that value was. I'm providing a value that goes beyond entertainment. That's what I strive to do. And learning my target market was at a certain point, I'm relating to corporate audiences. I'm not really going to perform in casinos as or tour like a music act. I'm a corporate entertainer. That's my background. That's my unique selling proposition.

So how would you explain that to potential clients, brands? Would you work with agencies? Would you do all of the above?

So for me, my number one marketing tool, and I think you have to figure this out in whatever your industry is, you got to know where are people discovering you. And is that by word of mouth? Is that on Instagram ads? Is that just by finding your social? Learning where people are discovering you is huge. For me, it's mostly word of mouth. People see me, they love what I did. They want me to do that at their XYZ event. That's similar. Some people see me on TV. And then my biggest tool is my promo video. It's three minutes, which is long. I even have one that's one minute. That if you watch it, even if it's muted, you get certain things that hit you. I want to get inside your brain the same way a really good advertising agency does and realize, what are you thinking while you're watching it? And my Are you creating credibility? Are you seeing people you recognize? I'm always dressed in a suit and tie. That's what I perform in most instances. Now, a lot of entertainers are more rock and roll. A lot of people that do what I do are not going to fit that mold and be square.

But I made that decision about eight years ago because I knew the people that are booking me and what they're looking for. So it's funny. I'm creating the brand based on my target market and knowing this from talking to bookers. Find these people that you work with and then ask them for candid advice. Be like, hey, what have you liked with people you've booked in the past? What have you not liked? And the people that are your target consumer, if they can give you that knowledge or if you can take them out to lunch or buy them a gift basket, find creative ways. People do well with flattery and bribery. Totally. But there's nothing like sending somebody a great gift basket and then feel like, Wow, you really went the extra mile. Handwritten notes. I used to send people a photo as a postcard for 10 10 years. At every gig I would do, I would take a photo with the birthday boy, the birthday girl. I do private parties, and I would always send the parents a picture of me and their kid smiling and laughing with me doing something magical. They get that card thanking them, telling them how great the party was, pointing out a few nice details about their child, which everyone loves to hear.

It's all about benefits to your clients. It's not about me. It's about showing you that I'm going the extra mile for you to make this a unique, memorable experience.

Totally. I mean, I probably built my career on handwritten notes and really thoughtful, random gifts that I would send people, not extravagant, but something that they had either spoken about or we had spoken about. I've sent Argyll Socks. I've sent Cat Pooh Coffee. I've sent a lot of weird stuff, but it's paid dividends. Right.

I like how the listeners are waiting to say, Look, cat poop coffee, cat poop coffee, Argyll Socks, check. Nicole, we got this. We're taking our business to the next level, baby.

That's all you need. Hold on to your wallet. Money Rehab will be right back. And now for some more Money Rehab. So I'm curious. I know part of the strategy behind mind reading tricks is actually planting somewhat subconscious, unconscious, you tell me, idea into people's minds. So what can people listening do to utilize some of those strategies when they're at work? Like asking their boss for a raise, getting people to do things for you.

It's like breadcrumbs. It's creating that path of breadcrumbs that leads you to the prize. So I think making a case for you to get a raise is overdelivering, constantly exceeding expectations. And I think you've got to be your own best cheerleader. You want to do it in a way that's not grandiose, but showing where you've delivered time and time again and not just letting that go. And I think that's really important. I don't want to say you build a case, but you show how time and again you're willing to take on responsibility. When I get calls for TV shows and somebody goes, can you do this? I always say yes. I might have no idea. I might hang up the phone, cold sweats, hyperventilating into a bag, and it's like, Oh, what am I going to do? But I'm going to say yes, and then I'm going to figure out how to do it. People that rise to the challenge, you see the cream rise to the top, who makes that senior leadership position? It's usually the person who's the first at the meeting to go, I got that boss. And then not only do they hit it, they hit it out of the park.

So you want to be that person who shines in your field. What can I do that differentiates me? And if I can't differentiate, what in my market makes me the best? And define those for yourself. Don't hope other people define them for you.

Yeah, but how do you leave breadcrumbs for your boss if you want to raise? You can't just be like, so a Mr. Gorman. It'd be awesome if I could add a zero to my paycheck.

I think, first off, timing is everything in life. So read the tea leaves as to when the good timing is. You can catch people at certain moments, and I've had moments in life that are, call it luck, call it timing or a healthy mix of both. But when someone's in a great mood, that's the time to ask for something. So try to start noticing people's patterns. Is it right after a holiday or vacation, they come back all loose and relaxed, and suddenly you've got a captive audience? Versus if they're super stressed. When I used to get gigs at restaurants, who wants this nerdy dude who's 14? I was like four foot nothing walking up to the table. I knew it was a heavy lift. What I would do, I learned early on, go when they're not busy. So between shifts between 2:30 and 4:00, there's nobody in the restaurant. Everyone's there hanging out. And now don't go in asking for something. If you're a salesman, people are on guard. If you're a customer, they treat you well. So when I go up, I go up to the restaurant, I get something like a lemonade, and then I'd show a trick to my waiter or waitress because they have to serve you.

And they're blown away. They go, Oh, my God. And they're going to naturally go up and get somebody else. Can I bring my friend? I go, Yeah, bring them over. And I would get five or six waiters, waitresses, bartenders around me. And I go, is the manager here? And they go, yeah, bring them over. Now you're giving them a value. Now I don't leave without getting a job. And what I would do, again, this is not apropos to you getting a raise in corporate, but I want to see the parallel. I now give them a no lose proposition. I go, hey, look at all the people you get in here a night, right? Why don't I do this the same way you were impressed? Why don't I come here on a slow night for you, like a Tuesday? Don't pay me a penny. No money. It's very hard to say no when someone's offering something for free. I go, when every single person leaves that night, they're going to tell you they had the best time. They're going to come back and get next week with friends. And now, instead of getting tips, I would tell every table, don't give me a tip.

When you leave, tell the manager and the host that you had the best time ever and how much you want to come back. And they go, of course we will. And I would land nine out of 10 of those jobs when I would do that. So make a case that's undeniable. Show proof that you've delivered and over delivered. Take on some big swings and big responsibilities. And like I said, know the right time to approach it and always ask for more than you want because you can always go down when you can negotiate. You never go up. So let's say you want a five % raise, you start at a 15 % raise. And they go, what? 15 %? What about 10? You go, all right, I didn't want to do it, but I'll work with you and we'll do twelve and a half. Bam. You never start with what you want. Number one thing to listen to from this whole podcast, always start bigger and you can work your way down and never take it personally. Negotiations are about business. They're not hating you or rejecting you. It's business. It's not personal.

Could not possibly agree more.

Sorry for the long rants. No. I got really motivated and excited.

We love it. It's such good advice, and it's such good sales methodology to not sell and to play this long game, right? Because if you wanted a paycheck right then and there, you probably wouldn't have gotten it. In fact, you were already in a deficit by buying a lemonade and getting there.

I'm already in the hole. And then talk about money when you're in the power position. So again, I would come back two weeks later and say, This is going great here, isn't it? And then we talk about money. I provided value to you So it's only fair that we'll talk about how you can provide value back to me. Plus, now you want me because now you have customers coming back and they're expecting me to be there. So in whatever business you're in, whether that's upwards to a boss or you run the business, is negotiate once you have the power position, realize who needs who more, and act accordingly.

Smart. And I bet at that time, you probably weren't rolling in it. So you really did need the money. I don't know where you were going home to after. If you were struggling to pay bills or something, how do you keep that aside? How do you not show that you're really, literally thirsty or hungry? Fully.

So there's a real power to saying no. They always say there's a term like it takes 10 years to become an overnight success. I quit my job 10 years before I was on America's Got Talent. And that show was what blew up my career. That was the first big thing. Suddenly people knew who I was. And instead of me just doing restaurants in New York, I was doing shows all over the country. At that point, I had to turn down a lot work from people that had hired me before. And suddenly you hit another rung, your rates go up, and a lot of these people can't afford to pay you and take it personally. So you need to know when in your career you can say no, but know that sometimes even if you're thirsty, you don't want to come off thirsty. You do not want to say, I'll do this, and devalue yourself, which is very easy when you're on the come up, because you want that paycheck, and you don't realize that if you negotiate down, whatever you negotiated down is your rate for everything because now you're going to be negotiable with everyone.

So if you decide you are going to negotiate down, take away something of value. If your price is $100 and you say, I can't do it. Will you do $80? All right, I'll do it. Then you have no integrity. So you need to take something away. Say, Well, I'll do this, but I'm not going to be able to do this thing on stage, and I'm going to have to stay a half hour less. Now, you've shown why you reduced your price. I think that's very important in any type of negotiation is find a reason for why you're willing to, I'm not going to say capitulate or give up, but why you're reducing your cost.

But what if you need it? What if you legit don't just want it but need it?

Then if you legit need it, you need to know when the timing is right. That's the same thing. Don't go to your boss when they're super stressed and be like, Hey, man, can I have a raise or can I? What do you think? That's a terrible time to do it. So set yourself up for success and get a little piggy bank going. Get yourself comfortable enough that when decide to make those types of big moves, whether it's leaving to go out on your own, try to get a raise, trying a new position where you might take a haircut on price, on what you make. I know a lot of people that changed professions, made less money, but they traded their happiness. And trust me, we only live once. If you're working your butt off nonstop making a lot of money, but it's not fulfilling you, you need to re examine your life, too. I know people that it's the opposite. They have all the money in the world, but no time to spend it. So pick your poison. If you really it, then take it. Honestly, take it, build it up, try to be smart, try to suck little bits away.

I don't know anybody, no matter how little they make, that can't put a few bucks away and the power of compounded interest. Give it time and it will grow. But Don't try to get rich overnight. That's always a way to lose money.

We end our episodes by asking listeners for one tip they can take straight to the bank. Can you give us, I know you have a lot, but just one piece of money advice or a skill from mentalism that listeners can use today to get ahead in their finances or career?

Start saving now. The one thing that blew me away when I was about 12 years old, that somebody explained to me was time value of money, which is as money compounds, you look at these charts, and you're like, It's not that much in five years or 10 years. But the more you wait, the more a small amount, if you keep adding little bits to it, little bits to it becomes massive. And so you're waiting for that moment to win the lottery, or I'm just going I'm going to get a raise? No. Find a way. All of us spend on crap that we don't need. Just decide that that one little thing, I'm going to take 10 extra bucks, 20 bucks, 200 bucks, whatever that number is for you, automatically, sock it away. Kind of like your diet, eating a little bit healthier, save healthier. I started doing that when I was 13, when I had my first job in Magic, and that allowed me, when you just said to me, how do you avoid being thirsty? The fact that I started saving when I was 13, putting it away in delaying gratification. Instead of buying Jordans or this other thing, I'm like, I'm going to put this money away and I'm going to slowly invest it.

And that allowed me, when I was 23, to quit my job on Wall Street 10 years later and now live the life that I would have dreamed of. Instead of having a boss, I'm my own boss because of the things I did early in life.

Yeah. The idea of fuck you money, you would associate with being a lot of money, but it's not necessarily. It's just like a Fuck you freedom fund, whatever that is for you.

Live within your means. There's people that I know that have nine figures and I still feel like they're broke, and there's people that have 100 grand and feel like they're on top of the world because it's all about how much you spend.

Totally. It's not how much you make, but how much you keep that matters.

You can't keep it when you die. So you got to enjoy life. You save, but you got to find those things that are going to give you value. So there's definitely things that either buying stuff or for me, I like buying experiences. I think experiences are the best thing in life.

So may I have an experience now?

Let's do it. Show me what you got. I'm assuming we have a financially savvy crowd, and while we're not going to get nuts and bolts like we're on CNBC, this is Money News Network, baby. I want you to imagine we have a dartboard, okay? And you know there's circles and there's like little triples. And you just start in your mind filling in logos of all different companies on the 15 and the 16 and the 12 and the 18. Can you imagine and hold up your hand, and I like to make a texture when you think of stuff, and you throw a dart and you hit a random square, 14. Go for it. And And just imagine what stock was on there. Can you picture that for me right now just in your mind? Yes. Random. You just made this up right now in this moment. I need them to know. And you look at that one and you go, I can do better. That's what you listen to money rehab for. You're taking a real investment in your future. You throw another dart and you aim and you hit the 19 and you hit another logo.

And think of that company. Can you make up a company right now? Yeah.

Do you want me to tell you?

No, never. Mind reader. And finally, Got it. Third try is the charm. You zeroed in on it, and this one, you know what's there, the bullseye. You throw it and you nail it. Show me that acting. Throw it and nail it. Bam. Okay. You can see that company logo. Am I right? You can see that one clear as day. I can see it. This one, you had focused. Okay. Try not to say anything, but here's where I do. I watch people's reactions. Don't say anything. Tech, media, energy, health care, pharma. I'm going through Dow Jones. I'm going through stuff. I think I got... Okay, think big company, small company, mid-cap. I think it's go big or go home on money rehab. Can you be honest and tell them there is literally no way that I could have known what You took the stock you thought of first and hit because you didn't even know. Then you threw another dart, and finally you land on this bullseye. There is no way anybody could know what just played out in your mind.

No. Okay.

So what I'm going to do is I'm going to write this down. I'm going to have you cover your eyes. Close your eyes first. Close your eyes. See, I wrote down a word really big, and everyone that's listening, turn around, open your eyes.

Open my eyes now.

Open your eyes, open your eyes, and tell us, bam, you threw it, you nailed it. That bullseye, what was that stock? What was that company you were thinking of? Say it. Disney. Disney is what I wrote down, everybody. How did you do that? What the fuck?

How did you guess that? How did you guess that?

What? That's what I do right there.

That's your jam? I'm done.

That's how we drop the mic. Am I right? I don't know how to top this.

I need a moment. Money Rehab is a production of Money News Network. I'm your host, Nicole Lappin. Money Rehab's executive producer is Morgan Lavo Our researcher is Emily Holmes. Do you need some money rehab? And let's be honest, we all do. So email us your moneyquestions, moneyrehab@moneynewsnetwork. Com, to potentially have your questions answered on the show or even have a one-on-one intervention with me. And follow us on Instagram @moneynews and TikTok @moneynewsnetwork for exclusive video content. And lastly, thank you. No, seriously, thank you. Thank you for listening and for investing in yourself, which is the most important investment you can make.