 One of the things we should have mentioned that we have in is we're wearing suits on this wonderful podcast, or a tux in my case. We're going to the Magic Castle. And how did you become a magician, or you're a hobbyist magician? I'm a hobbyist magician. Mostly it's after a few drinks and mostly just magic tricks for friends and family. I have, you know, just been doing magic. I don't know, was it just interested as a kid? My older brother, one of my older brothers would do little tricks for me and I always liked it. I grew up, and I date myself a little bit here, but I grew up in the 80s and 90s when David Copperfield was ready. He was like the only magician. He had a monopoly on the magician name. He couldn't say magician. He was in the 70s and then Copperfield came around in the 80s and 90s really. In two decades he pretty much owned it. He had a pen and teller and those guys, but Copperfield was the guy. And at that time he was still touring. He made the Statue of Liberty disappear, I think. In a 747 jet? Yeah, on television. So I would watch those annual specials all the time. I would always, you know, for a birthday present, ask my mom to take me to the show here in Hollywood when we would come through. So I'd always been into it, and then as, you know, just as a kid in a hobby, and it sort of faded away. And I kind of got uncool, I think, with high school. Sure. And then I got in, you know, I went to college and just didn't have time for it and kind of faded away as a hobby. And then fast forward to when I was in my early 30s, randomly met this guy, Alan, who's now a good friend of mine, and a totally different unrelated architecture thing. It was an Eames Foundation member. Okay. And we're at this lunch and he was there and just kind of started talking about things and he ended up being a Magic Castle member. So he asked me if I've ever been and I haven't been a couple times. Tell people what the Magic Castle is. We have listeners from all around the country. We have a member's only clubhouse or the Academy of Magical Arts. So you've heard of like the Academy of Motion Pictures, I think for movies. So this is the Academy of Magical Arts. And it's been around for 50 plus years. It's in a old Victorian mansion in the Hollywood Hills, not far from a man's Chinese theater in all those areas. It was created by two brothers back in the 60s for their father was a magician and they were in the magic as well. And they wanted to create a private clubhouse for magicians. And it has since evolved and turned into one of the most exclusive clubs really in LA. Yeah. In the world, you know, at least in the magic world. And you have to be a member or a guest of a member to go. And so they have a dining area. They have five different showrooms. They have five different bars. And it's just a fun place to go. Stadium seating. Best magicians that come through on a weekly basis. And, you know, you can see everything from close up card and coin magic to grand stage illusions and everything in between. And the building itself is full of gags and tricks and things like that. It's really cool. And it's you have to dress formal. In fact, I need to put on a tie. So they're very strict about the dress code and you have to be wearing a suit or cocktail dress or something like that. And when you met your friend, did you? Was he teaching you, Alan? Was he teaching you magic? Yeah. So he wasn't teaching me, but he could bring me as a guest. Okay. And I started going. Because I still have liked it. You know, I still, you know, by that time. Who doesn't like magic? Yeah. David Blaine was on TV. And, you know, so I would always watch those kinds of things. And I would still do some card tricks here and there. So I started going to the magic castle as his guest. And then it was really like a bucket list thing for me. Where as a kid, I've known about the magic castle growing up in LA. And I'd always wanted to be a member back then. And so I just said, you know what? I'm going to get back into this and practice my ass off. And you have to audition to become a member. And I'm going to audition by the time I turn 35. This is a couple of years in a row. So I probably gave myself a year, just over a year. And so got back into sort of like riding a bike. A lot of the fundamentals are still already new. I just had to practice and get warmed up again. But I started going like as a guest of his like three times a week. And watching observing and practicing my routine to anybody that would listen. So any of the members, the magician members that were there and say, Hey, can you kind of do this routine for you? Can you give me critiques and help me? So yeah. So they do auditions the first Monday of every month, like birthday, 35th birthday was on a Sunday. I auditioned the very next day. And I got it. That's amazing. 25% of the people audition get in like that. Did they give you a card? What do they give you? A card. A card. Like a, like a, what do they give you? So you do. So you get a member card. Not a card. You get this pin. Oh, wow. You can see here. So this is the goal. What's on it? Our magician members. It's there. Sort of like they're pressed. Okay. So this is the goal in the middle, which is sort of his magic asshole kind of mascot. Okay. Is there an esoteric meaning to this? That you want to tell us? No, just kidding. No, okay. No, we're just going to go afterwards. So magician members, when you're there, you typically wear the pin so that people know you're a member. You're there. How does one learn magic? So I know like, so in my head, right? You can go to Toys R Us or no longer. I guess I go on amazon.com and I can purchase like how to do magic. A kit. Is that. A kit. The best way. I don't know. The best way is the old fashion way. Pick up a book. Okay. Start reading fundamentals. Of course, there's tons of stuff on YouTube now and everything. But really, if you're serious. The books. Books and reading is, you know, it's still the best way. And then practicing in the mirror. Recording yourself. You can use the videos as supplements, I think, to to your learning. If you can figure something out or you want to see how other people are doing it. But. Um, and there's different, you know, there's different books that are written in different ways for different learning styles or some that are written like textbooks. Where you really just build on fundamentals and next step, there's a whole series called card college. It's like textbook style. Wow. Um, the magic castle has a massive library as well with books that date back to like 1600s. I think or something like that. And it's bald, but they just have a massive amount of That's cool. Material there. So that's the best way. Or, you know, taking classes too. They have cast on those classes. Other magicians teach classes. And then you have this amazing story if you shared about Pete Carroll. Yeah. So I went to USC. I was a huge, still am, huge USC football fan. I went before Pete Carroll was there. But Pete Carroll was the coach for USC during some of the best of the recent years where he won some national championships. And of course I was loving it as a fan, football fan, but I was also really interested in his philosophy or what he was doing to win. Cause we were winning. We won for like two years straight. Right. Or more. I think there was something like 30 something games in a row. Reggie Bush, Matt Liner. And all those guys. Yeah. Period. So I get the USC. I went to Marshall school business. So I get the Marshall magazine, Alumni magazine thing that they sent out. And they had written an article about Pete in there and interviewed him about how he gets, basically how he gets his team to play without fear. They play knowing they're going to win for them. It's just like going to practice and they just do what they need to do, not fearing. And he has, I think his master's in sports psychology. So he kind of brings in a little bit of law of attraction almost thinking into it, where you put your intentions out there and they manifest. So I know you said earlier that you're not into that, but. No, but it happens. But it does happen. I'm not into it because it sounds crazy, but it always happens. So because of that, I'm into it. It's just hard to explain. Right. I feel like it needs the word like magic, such a good marketing word. We need to create a word. That's not proof that it works. When we, I'll come back to the story. One of our very first pitch decks. When we were pitching to ideal app. So very beginning. I don't think this is advised anymore, but we had a slide for exit strategy. And we always thought we were going to be acquired by strategic and we had listed some of the companies that we thought would acquire us back then. And go to it. It was at the very top of the list. So anyway, back to the P curl thing. Law of attraction. He didn't really say law of attraction. They didn't say it on the article, but it was all about putting your intentions out there playing like you're going to win. And I just thought it was fascinating. And so I wanted to know as a leader, it's cool that he thinks that, but how does he get his, his team coaches and his team to pick up and work that way, especially the other coaches, right? These are high level, right? Super elite athletes in some cases, coaches the whole bit. Right. Yeah. Offensive coordinator, defensive coordinator. Like it's one thing for the head coach to come in and these are college kids. So I can imagine it's, and he's a very charismatic, energetic guy. So they're going to listen to him and buy into him, but no one wants the rest of the staff rolling their eyes. And so I'm like, how does he do that? And, you know, and again, as leading a company, I wanted to do that with my team as well. So I wrote him a letter, physically got out a piece of paper and wrote it. Didn't email it. Didn't even type it and sign it, you know, I wrote it and I sent him a letter in right around, just right around the hallway. So right around like November, December. So 2007 or 2008. Okay. We're around there. And I didn't hear anything until after the holidays, like after the season ended, and he got back on vacation or whatever. It's probably around March or April. And I got a letter back saying, Hey, would love to have you come out. I wrote him a letter and said, I would love to know. I read this article. I would love to know how you do this with your team. Can I come shadow you for the day? Is there a reason you hand wrote it? Just to, I felt like the email would just get lost. Probably go to his assistant. Right. I've got it. I just felt like it would be received. Yeah. So I got one back and he said, I'd love to have you come out. Let's start with you coming out to see a practice. We can talk about it afterwards in my office. So. Cool. So I booked it with his assistant and went out and went to one of the practices. And then afterwards said, Hey, you know, Brian, I'm the guy that wrote your letter and he said, yeah, come up to my office and chat. So we went out there and told him what I was talking about and what I was doing. And he gave me some books to read or told me, you know, some titles of books to read. And I said, okay, how about that shadowing? I'd love to have you for the day. He's like, okay, you know, let's make that happen. So I scheduled it with his assistant again. And they sent me the schedule and I showed him like a couple of weeks later. They started like six in the morning, six 30 something like that. Yeah. And I go to like 10 at night. No, stop. This dude has so much energy. It's amazing. It was impossible. It was like impossible. Six to 10. Something like that. Six 30. Yeah. I mean, we were there early. Okay. And I sat and followed him around everywhere. Went to all the coaches meetings, went to, they were calling recruits, went to practice, morning practice, afternoon practice and lunch with him. Like spent the whole day watching tape. It was awesome. So as a football fan, super awesome just to be involved. And so following around the whole thing was, it was just awesome. And I saw, you know, some of that just comes natural to him. And because he's so charismatic, charismatic and energetic, he just draws a following and people want to listen and follow him and win. Right. And so I thought it was just really cool. And thank them. He's like, well, you think this was cool. You should come back in the fall, like right before like in the summer, right before the season starts. That's when the energy is really buzzing. All right. So I scheduled another session in early August of that year to go back just before the season after summer break, a couple of weeks before the first game and didn't hold another day and shadowing around. And then after that, end up doing some volunteer work for his charity called a better LA that his daughter was running at the time. And just really honestly trying to get back and like, I felt like he was so generous with his time with me. Yeah. And I wanted to like somehow thank him in your back. And I felt like donating my time would be a nice way to do that. But were there any key takeaways that you can share with everyone around, I guess, either his philosophy, having a philosophy, having a philosophy. You need to have a philosophy. You need to know what you stand for. If you want to be a good leader and you want to win in anything, you need to know what your philosophy is and what you stand for. And you should be able to articulate it in a way that other people can understand it. And digest it quickly. Yeah. He got the idea from John Wooden, the famous UCLA basketball coach. Yeah. Who also kind of has that same, did have that same like philosophy. I think the winning is college basketball coach. Yeah. I think a lot of time. Yeah. And so Pete had, you know, some unsuccessful years in the NFL, including with the Pats. Right. That's right. Yeah. And had to take a moment. And after being fired a couple of times, take a step back and figure out what he stood for. And he figured that out and then came to SC and implemented it and sort of a test. It worked. It was awesome. And he did well to Seahawks. He did well to Seahawks too. Do you still keep in touch? Almost one or two Super Bowls. Almost. Yeah, damn Pats. There's so many books. There's a, there's a, I think Annie, I think Annie Duke writes a book about that you should focus on process and not results. And she's a poker player. And in the book, she cites, which is the funniest thing that a poker player would do. She cites Pete Carroll's decision to throw on that play. And she gives the statistics of why that was the right thing to do. But everyone critiques the result. And in poker, you never do that. You just, it's all about, and I think in life, right? The successful people figure out, just focus on the process and the results, statistically speaking, were, he was doing the right thing, but it just didn't, the result. He was doing the right thing. I think it was probably over thought, right? Like, okay, now we're going to throw and give us one more chance if he doesn't catch it. Like it was just, when the simple answer was give the ball to your running back and have him just pound it in and you win. Right? And that's the right, safe thing to do. It seems like he wasn't wrong in deciding to throw, but it was just over thought. It's crazy. Shout out to Malcolm Butler, by the way. MVP of the game. Got a free truck from Tom Brady. I think Tom Brady was the MVP. Like, ended up giving Malcolm the keys of the Chevy.