Greetings, SuperFriends!

Today’s show is a little bit different. That’s because our guest today will be the first to tell you that he’s not in fact SuperHuman… but you won’t believe him. His name is Daniel Harel, and he and I spoke together at a recent TEDx event, and I had the privilege of watching him practice and rehearse on some of the other speakers while we prepared for the event. Daniel’s gift? He’s a mentalist, or mind-reader. The feats that I’ve seen Daniel perform are so astounding, that I actually had to record some of them so you can view them on our website.

From an early age, Daniel took an interest in mentalism, and entertaining people through the ability to seemingly read people’s minds. Now, of course, that’s not actually possible – but Daniel’s message – of how people are very similar, is a powerful one. In the interview, I wanted to uncover just how we can use Daniel’s wisdom to try and better understand people, what they’re thinking, and how we can use this knowledge to improve our lives.

In this fun and absolutely jaw dropping interview, we get to see a real life demo of Daniel actually reading my mind… It’s going to blow yours! We also go into some insights that Daniel has acquired about life, emotional health and wellbeing, and so much more after reading the minds of about 10,000 people.

By the way, towards the end of the show, Daniel will guess the card you're probably thinking of… tweet to @gosuperhuman if you're thinking of the cards Daniel mentioned!

This episode is brought to you by SuperLearner Academy – home of my exclusive masterclasses. Check out a free trial using the link above today!

In this episode, we discuss:

• What Daniel Harel has been up to since giving his popular TEDx Talk
• What is “mentalism,” and how did Daniel get into it as a young man
• Daniel literally guessing a name of a figure from my childhood – with no clues whatsoever!
• How “mirroring” works, and how you can use it to read people's emotions
• Are there any practical applications of Daniel's skills, and does he use them in his personal life?
• A cool trick that you can learn with 0 practice to absolutely amaze your friends!
• Some of the crazier stories of how Daniel has used mentalism in his daily life
• Daniel's process of learning the common techniques, and then shifting into his own innovations
• The one occurrence that made Daniel Harel decide to develop his own techniques
• How long did it take Daniel to learn all of this, and how can YOU learn it?
• What are the 3 things that everybody cares about most, and how can you use it to read them?
• What is the “spiral of silence,” and how has Daniel learned that we really are more similar than we know?
• What is Daniel Harel working on now?
• Daniel guesses what card you're probably thinking of as he's speaking (cool!)
• What is the #1 life lesson that Daniel hopes that you get from this episode? 

Resources Mentioned in This Episode:

• Daniel Harel's TED Talk
• Richard Bandler's work on Neuro-Linguistic Programming
• Tweet to @gosuperhuman if you're thinking of the cards Daniel mentioned!
• Dan Ariely's bestselling books
• Malcolm Gladwell's many books, especially Outliers
• Daniel's website

Favorite Quotes from Daniel Harel:

Transcript:

Introduction: Welcome to the Becoming SuperHuman Podcast. Where we interview extraordinary people to bring you the skills and strategies to overcome the impossible. And now here's your host, Jonathan Levi.

Jonathan Levi: This episode is brought to you by the Become a SuperLearner Masterclass. Now, I've been telling you guys about the Masterclass for a few weeks now. So I'm actually just going to take a step back and let a good friend of mine, tell you guys about his opinion on the Masterclass.

“I am Nelson Dellis, four-time USA, memory champion, and a huge fan of the SuperLearner Masterclass. You know, when I started memory techniques years ago, you know, I wish that I had had all the resources that are available in this course. Jonathan does a great job teaching it. And it's a fantastic course and I highly recommend it. It'll take you just as far as I am without as much time that I had to put in. So enjoy it, get into it and, uh, keep your memory active”.

Jonathan Levi: To learn more, to sign up for a free trial with no credit card required, or to redeem an exclusive discount for podcast listeners only please visit jle.vi/learn or visit becomeasuperlearner.com.

Greetings, SuperFriends, and welcome to this week's show.

You guys I have a special, special treat for you guys today, but it's a little bit of a different one and it's different because this guest is going to tell you is going to claim to you that he's not SuperHuman. And I think if you're like me, you're probably not going to believe him when you see what he can do.

His name is Daniel Harel and he and I spoke together at a recent TEDx event here in Tel-Aviv. And now I had the privilege of watching Daniel practice and rehearse some of the things he was going to do while we were in the back room with some of the other speakers. And it blew my mind. And that's because Daniel's gift is mentalism, he's a mentalist.

He can read people's minds or at least convince them that he's able to read their minds. Now, the feats that I've seen Daniel perform and which he'll perform today on the show are so astounding that I just had to record some of them. So you guys can check them out and see just what is possible what someone can do when they have this astute, almost Sherlock Holmes-like, ability to observe people and pay attention to the smallest of details.

Now, as Daniel will tell you from an early age, he took an interest in mentalism and an interest in entertaining people through the ability to seemingly read their minds. Now, of course, that's not actually possible, but it really seems like it might be when you meet someone like Daniel. The thing is his message is that people are so similar and that we spend way too much time imagining how different we are when in fact, if you can read people as well as he does, you realize that we're all the same.

We all have the same fears and anxieties, and I'll let him tell you a little bit more about that and why that's important. So I hope you enjoy the show. I think it's going to blow your mind. I hope the magic of what he's able to do and how he's able to completely shock me comes through in the audio. I think it will.

It's an absolute jaw-dropping interview and we get to see some things that honestly I would have never thought were possible. So I think it's really going to blow your minds. It definitely blew mine. So without further ado, let me welcome my friend, Mr. Daniel Harel.

So Daniel, welcome, welcome. It's such a pleasure to see you again. I haven't seen you since the TEDx event. 

Daniel Harel: It's good to be here. Good to see you again. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah, I understand you've been very, very busy. Tell us a little bit about that.

Daniel Harel: Well in the past, uh, like a month already, it's been, I've been performing a lot, which is actually the regular, but, uh, where now I do this, these shows I take part in this cast that does, uh, these shows called The Sorcerer's Night.

Okay. Uh, in Tel Aviv. And it's like a once in a week, uh, thing, it's a dinner and a show, evening. So where you get to the restaurant and you have like dinner and during the dinner, there are people walking around mentalists and magicians walking around the tables and performing stuff at the tables. And, uh, afterward, after the food is over, there is like the main show.

Which is, uh, consists of, uh, two shows one after the other. And I do usually the first one, sometimes the second one, and it's been running for a year or so, but in the past few months, it just like blew out of proportion. We're sold out like a month in advance. 

Jonathan Levi: Congratulations. That's very exciting. So for those who didn't see your amazing Ted Talk that you did the same day as mine.

Um, tell us a little bit about, you know what you do and what mentalism is, and kind of a little bit about your story. 

Daniel Harel: Okay. So I'll use, uh, some parts of my talk because it really got me to fix everything in order, make everything clear. But the main idea is that mentalism is a subgenre of magic where magic usually relates to stuff that are, um, supernatural, like objects that are supernatural. 

Okay. So I'll rephrase that. Magic usually deals with, uh, objects that do supernatural stuff, whereas mentalism tries to do the supernatural occurrences without any objects. Like more of person-to-person stuff. The techniques are different obviously, but, uh, uh, in mentalism you rely heavily on psychological techniques to achieve your desired effect, which is the apparent, uh, phenomenon of telepathy.

Jonathan Levi: I love it. And I told my audience in the intro and I've been telling my friends since your talk that you're the first, it's so-called superhuman that I've met, who immediately told me they weren't superhuman and yet I still don't believe you. Like, I'm still pretty sure that you can read minds. You just don't want to make a big fuss about it.

So I'm excited to get into that. Tell us a little bit about how you got into that. 

Daniel Harel: Okay. So, um, as I said in my TedTalk, well, I'll give you actually the inside story of, um, how it got to that point. Awesome. We love inside stories. As a child, I was very skeptical to these kinds of things. Whenever I saw a magician, uh, like on TV, I would immediately think.

Oh, okay. So, um, he has some invisible wires. There's a trap door. Like the assistant he cuts into two is actually, uh, two people, one on top of the other. And I would just try and get some explanation in my head so it can ease my mind and just, I can forget about it. Some sort of weird, logical explanation.

And, uh, around the age of, uh, 14, I saw a mentalist performing at the streets. So there were no strings attached and there were literally no strings attached and there was no beautiful assistant and there were no smoke and mirrors or anything. It was just standing there performing for the people passing by.

And I got home and I couldn't stop thinking about it because they just, I couldn't find any logical explanation to it. And I was sitting with myself and, uh, I got to that point where I always thinking, okay, well, there are two options being the rational person I am. There are two options. Either this guy really has supernatural abilities, which is something you have to consider right now, or that I have to learn how to do this.

And, uh, I went online and I said, this was more than 12 years ago. So there was not that much online to go to. But I went online and I searched for something of that nature. I searched for that guy's name and I searched for magic and stuff like that. And I eventually ended up on an open online form, an Israeli open online forum where a beginner mentalists were talking.

No, it wasn't like sharing any secrets. It was mostly like telling embarrassing stories from there first shows or stuff like that. This guy told, uh, how we got to a show and realized only when he got there did he forget the suitcase with everything. So he didn't have anything to perform with like very embarrassing first-time stories I logged on to that format.

I started like reading everything. I wasn't actively participating. I was mostly just like, lurking or stuff like that. And, um, after like three weeks of reading what they were posting, I realized they were planning like first of its kind real-life meeting, somewhere in Tel Aviv, it like this hobby playing cards place where you have like these, uh, green velvet tables and stuff.

So they thought it would be befitting. And I really wanted to get in on that. And as I said on my Ted Talk, I had to find a way to get in. And I, it was pretty obvious to me that it wouldn't just work if I asked them, oh, can I please join? My name is Daniel. This is the first time you hear about me, but I've been reading your stuff for three weeks.

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. And you're 14 at the time. 

Daniel Harel: I'm 14 at the time. Actually, when I got there, there was one guy who I think was younger than me, but I'm pretty sure I'm not sure about his age. I'm pretty sure I was at least the second youngest person over there, if not. Wow, how many people were there? About 20 or so?

20 amateur mentalists. So I just decided that I'll go there. So I said, they don't know me. This is an open online form. They don't know each other. They only have the usernames. I'll just go over there and act as if I was one of them. Hope for the best. Just a little bit of chutzpah. Yeah. Just put a smile on your face and walk into any room and we'll be okay.

And that's what I did. And it worked. And, uh, at that meeting, I ended up, um, meeting one of the guys would, uh, eventually be one of my best friends in this field. If we can call it a field in the area of mentalism. And we stayed good friends for a very long time. And, uh, he taught me the first few things.

Jonathan Levi: Amazing. So you've mentioned how it's a branch of magic, but you've also mentioned that these are really relying on psychological techniques. So I don't know if mentalists follow the same kind of code of ethics as magicians, but I do have to ask how the hell does all this stuff work? I mean, even at a high level.

Daniel Harel: Okay. So, well, I'll give you the basic example. Okay. We'll do a few basic examples and hopefully, it will give you some sort of an image of how.

Jonathan Levi: Sure. Although you did tell me before the interview to write something down on a piece of paper, which was my first-grade teacher. Last name and you told me to surprise you in the middle.

So I'm going to interrupt you answering my question. And I'm going to ask what is my first-grade teacher's last name. 

Daniel Harel: Okay. Sorry. I thought this will be a little, uh, later in the interview, but sure. We'll do it now. Sure. Just so everyone listening. No, you did not tell me the name though. I didn't. You actually went to a different part of the house here and wrote it down where I can't see.

It was with you the whole time. It didn't give it to me or anything. Still in my pocket shredded. Okay. Sh you shred it. Okay. And I want you to imagine the name written in between us. Okay. Because if you can see the letters, like a big block, large capital letters. Okay. Okay. And just count the letters in your mind. Just go, just look at the first letter, the second letter, third letter, fourth or fifth letters.

Oh, it's a long name. Okay. First letter, second letter, third letter, fourth or fifth out of six lower seven. Okay. You see what happened there? When I said seventh, though, you suddenly, your eyes were following my hand as I was counting the letters. And the moment I got to the seventh letter, you went back to looking at me.

You stop following the hand, which means it's probably shorter at approximately six letters. Yes. 

Jonathan Levi: Um, to be honest, I didn't notice that happening because I must've been very settled with gone. 

Daniel Harel: Probably be less impressive if you did. Can you choose one that is in your mind, just choose one of the letters in your mind?

Okay. And look at me and imagine the entire name written between us. But that letter you chose is now like larger than the rest. As if someone just stretched it. Okay. And are you trying to trick me right now? Honestly? No, no. You're thinking of the same letter all the time because I'm getting two letters.

Jonathan Levi: Well, I see the whole name. Oh, you said that, but first letters larger.

Daniel Harel: Okay. So, but you did see more letters while you were thinking of it. Okay. So no. Just imagine the one focus on the one letter you chose. Okay. I'm still not quite sure. Is it a J? Yes? Okay. Wow. Okay. Just imagine we're sitting here and you're telling me the name, don't say anything out loud on your lips.

Just imagine saying the name. Okay. Just imagine that feeling of inhaling and exhaling and saying the name of the same time again. Is it Jordan? 

Jonathan Levi: Are you kidding me? Yeah. Yeah, it is.

I expect I'd have to guess each letter, but that's crazy. Thanks. That is crazy. And like Daniel said, wow, no prep. There's no way he saw the text. I mean, that's insane. Thanks. And especially because it's a, it's a different culture, you know, it's an American last name. That's wild. That's insanely wild. All right. How did you do that?

Daniel Harel: I'll tell you I have to kill you, right? 

Jonathan Levi: Um,  that's insane.

Daniel Harel: Thanks. So a few basic examples of how this stuff works. I assume that a lot of the people listening to this podcast have experimented with stuff like body language and, uh, read about stuff like that. But the most basic element is mirroring. Where you just, uh, subtly use the same body language as the person sitting in front of you.

Okay. And the thing is that mirroring a lot of time is used to steer the conversation and steer the atmosphere in the directions you want. But the basic element, actually, when you're trying to read someone is copying their body language in order to realize when they shifted their mood. So just like when I asked you to think of the letters.

And I showed you what you didn't see because you're not actually viewing this. You're listening is that I was moving my hand as I was counting the letter, the letters in the name. So I was saying first letter, second letter, and I was moving my hand and I was watching Jonathan as he was looking at my hand.

So the moment I saw you shifted you guys. I knew okay. Was shorter. And I said before, so this is like, most basic, basic principle.

Jonathan Levi: Sure. That part, I get how you went from J to Jordan. That's what blows my mind.

Daniel Harel: Well, that part I'm going to keep to myself. That's crazy. I do want people still an environment to perform, but that's insane.

Jonathan Levi: I mean, And you just, you saw it on my face is what you're saying. 

Daniel Harel: Uh, not only on your face but yeah. What are you doing basically revolves around the idea of extracting information without people knowing they're giving off that information. 

Jonathan Levi: That is incredible. I'm completely blown away by that. And, uh, you know, I, I think I have enough credibility with my audience for them to believe that.

I was very, very consciously trying to keep my lips pressed together. I was breathing with my nose so that my mouth wouldn't move. I mean, the whole deal. 

Daniel Harel: I literally have no idea how you could have gotten. It was obviously not as easy. I think it was also on the spot. 

Jonathan Levi: So I was staring out the window, just in case maybe my eyes would move and you would see that.

I mean, I really tried to make it hard for you, and I'm blown away. Then I have to ask because you know, it sounds like something, not everyone can learn in a one-hour podcast, but I do want to know. What are some of the practical applications in your life and how have you been able to apply the skillset in your daily life, maybe to communicate better with other people or influence others?

Daniel Harel: Okay, so, well, these days I try not to use it as much as possible in my daily life because I found that it really mixes like the the stage life with daily life. They didn't want that to happen. A few years ago, I gave a talk about exactly that, of how I used to date this girl. And yeah, obviously all embarrassing stories at our ages are usually about women.

Yes. Um, I used to date this girl, and, uh, for some reason on our first date, I got the impression that she wasn't that into me. And, um, I was really into her and after, uh, it ended, she ended it, uh, I couldn't help, but think that maybe in some way I influenced that situation because I'm so used to seeing a situation and analyzing it on the first second because of the live performances that may be for some reason, I got mixed up. 

For some reason, I thought she wasn't into me, which was maybe true, but maybe not true at the same time. And eventually, I projected that vibe into the relationship. So it was after that, that I decided that I will turn it down a notch as much as possible when I'm not performing.

Jonathan Levi: Sure, sure. You're very perceptive of people's emotions, nonetheless. I mean, it sounds like it's something you can't quite turn off because you see things that other people don't. 

Daniel Harel: Yeah, but I try as much as possible not to make my deductions based on that fair. 

Jonathan Levi: That makes total sense. Well, is there one cool trick that you could teach our audience to perform something very, very simple, very basic?

Daniel Harel: That's kind of common knowledge. That's kind of common knowledge. Okay. Okay. So I don't know if you've seen there's a movie called The Illusionist with Edward Norton. Great movie. Great movie. So they talk about a basic principle of a finding in which hand over to an object is hidden. Uh, which is, it looks something like this.

You have someone to hold the coin and you'll turn around. And, uh, they'll put that hand with the coin to their forehead and, uh, ask you, okay imagine that you're transmitting this image and then you'd say, okay, I'm going to turn around now. And, um, I want you to lower both hands into the same height. So one was on the forehead.

The other one was just down by her side. So place them both on the same height. One of them hiding in the, and the other is not. And as you can see, one of them is one of my hands right now, wider than the other brilliant, all the blood rushed out. So the thing is, this is the basic example without any knowledge of body language or anything like that, just basic knowledge of how to extract information without the person in front of you knowing they're giving it off.

Brilliant. There's another advancement to it, but it's a bit trickier and I'll show it to you so you can take the coin, hide behind your back. Sure. And on the count of three, I want you to place it in one hand and take both hands out. Okay. Do it right now. Okay. In front of me. Okay, cool. Okay. My hands are in front and just, yes.

Okay. So you won't switch the coin. So while I was talking, I was doing this, I was, uh, looking at Jonathan. I was saying, ah, okay. So on the count of three, I want you to place the coin in one hand and I mimic the action of placing a coin because the coin was already in his hands. I mimic the action of placing a coin in my hand, and I did it towards the left side.

So I hope that without even thinking about it, you just went to that side also. I hope you did it. Here is a tear. Okay. 

Jonathan Levi: So you basically influenced me, as to how I was going to behave, as opposed to trying to predict my behavior.

Daniel Harel: Yeah. It's a more basic, uh, technique. You can try it at home if you'd like.

Jonathan Levi:  Brilliant. So it's a little bit of what's the term NLP Neuro-Linguistic Programming. 

Daniel Harel: I've read a lot of materials of NLP, mostly the source material by Richard Bandler. Um, That's like the best is just to go to the source and these kinds of things. It's very hard to apply these things to the world of mentalism because these things are meant for therapy.

So you actually have to like really nitpick out of like a thousand-page book, you'll find one line that's really applicable to what I'm doing, but yeah, there's an element of NLP also involved. 

Jonathan Levi: Amazing. Daniel share with us some of the more crazy stories or situations that you found yourself in with this skill.

Daniel Harel: Okay. Well, there's a, the first time I remember actually my skill being acknowledged for what it is in a way that wasn't just like people saying, wow, our stuff. When we were at the certain age, which is not definitely the age in which you can get an alcoholic drink in Israel, we went like a bunch of people to this bar, which is now closed.

So no one is at harm or at risk now. And I was, uh, showing stuff to my friends. Yeah. This is the most politically correct safe way I can say this. 

Jonathan Levi: That's fine. Most, most of our audience is very familiar with me and my shenanigans. Last week, we talked about masturbation. What? You're totally fine. 

Daniel Harel: Oh,  so no masturbation in this story though.

So we went out to this pub and, uh, we're obviously very excited about this entire new concept of alcohol. And we were, um, I was, uh, showing stuff to my friends were like a bunch of teenagers, boys, and girls over there. And at some point, the waiter comes and she asks us what we would like to drink. And we were like at this high and, um, one of my friends turned to her and he says, wait, wait, wait, you have to see what this guy is doing.

It's amazing. And at that time I was practicing, uh, one thing that I still do actually till this day of using five different DSP shapes, uh, to guess the order in which a person is thinking.

Jonathan Levi: Oh yeah, I've seen you do this. 

Daniel Harel: Oh, it's mind-blowing. It is, it's a fun, a little bit. So I showed it to her and she got super excited and she was like, okay you have to come with me for a second. Now. I was just shocked because at that point I didn't have a girlfriend, didn't have any relationship. I was quite young at that point. And, um, she was obviously way older than us. And it was really exciting, whatever it was, it was really a sign, everybody cheering.

And I was like, Oh shit, this is embarrassing, stopped cheering. So I walk with her and we just walk over to the bar and she's like, okay, um, what will you have? And I was like whiskey and she just poured a shot for her, for the shot for me. And we both, uh, dang the shot and that was it. But in my head for a second, this was.

Jonathan Levi: Oh, my God magical key to dropping pennies. 

Daniel Harel: This was the first time that I realized, Oh my God, people like this up to the point that they would actually give something in order to see it. 

Jonathan Levi: Wow. Well, I mean, as I said, I still half believe you that you don't have superpowers. Let me ask you this. But you would say that if you had superpowers. Let me ask this in your talk, you talked a lot about how you originally started with these kinds of run-of-the-mill techniques that everyone was doing. And then you innovated and you developed your own sophisticated techniques that you've become known for. Tell me a little bit about that process of a learning and learning everything in the field and then becoming enough of a master in the field to innovate by yourself.

I'm really interested in that idea because that's something that I feel with my own kind of speed reading training that I started out learning the techniques. And I even say, you know, anyone can learn this stuff, blah, blah, blah. And then over the years, I've kind of tried to develop my own content, my own theories.

Daniel Harel: Cool. Well, I'll say it like this in the past year, I've been involved a lot with the high-tech community in Israel or with the entrepreneurship community in Israel. And I realized something very interesting that correlates with my vision of mentalism. Most people that build a startup company or decide that they're going to make their own product or whatever.

It usually starts from the point of seeing what's out there on the market and deciding, this won't work for me. I need something better. And something that relates to me in a way, and in the same way, I got to this point in mentalism. Cause as I said, I learned all those stuff and uh, I was performing with those, uh, basic materials.

And, uh, this is actually, this is kind of a, it's not a sad story for me, but it's like this moment of shift in the way I looked at it stuff. I was performing at this a very high end, a super-secret like billionaires event, somewhere up North in Israel, it was simply like 10 people at this Villa. We were at poolside.

I was performing for them, very intimate, very intimate, um, just one-on-one stuff. And out of the 10 people, at one point only nine were completely with me. The 10th person was checking. Uh, he just got an SMS, a text message, or he was checking the text message. And I was just about to reach the climax of the bit I was doing.

And his friend was all in for me. So he was trying to help me set to the guy who was texting. And he said, no, no, you really have to see this part. I've seen this a week ago done by someone else. He's going to have this entire thing written in a prediction inside his pocket. It really came out of like this really good place of wanting your friend to focus on the show.

He really appreciated me. So we didn't want his friend doing something else during the show. But for me it was devastating because what basically said is. This is amazing. I've seen it somewhere else. And after I finished that show, that part of the show went out of the show immediately completely. And I decided that I just, I couldn't do the stuff everyone else is doing.

It just got me too. And even though that part, that little bit was very combined with my personality and really had elements of my ah way of walking around things and doing stuff. It was still, resembling other stuff enough for that guy to say, it's amazing, I've seen it somewhere else. I just had to do something new. 

Jonathan Levi: And how did you go about doing that? I mean, I imagine, well first let me ask you from concept to the point where you can do it on a podcast and guests. Someone's first grade, teacher's last name. I mean, how long does that take you to develop and how are you practicing? I mean, tell us a little bit about your process, as much as you can. 

Daniel Harel: It deals with a larger question, which is where does inspiration come from?

Which I guess most of you guys can relate to them. My inspiration usually comes from visual images of stuff I want to happen on stage. I would see a movie. I would, uh, look at a painting and I would say, okay, I want this kind of visual to happen on stage. It's either that or I would read something and feel an emotion from that piece that I read that, uh, I would like to somehow give away to my audience.

And that's actually the most, um, abstract part of where you would say. Okay, this is very surreal, but that's where I get the inspiration for it. Now comes to the actually harder part, which is deciding what do you want to do with that? 

And then afterward, the technicalities of how to get working are well, mostly, uh, done per bit, but, uh, there are usually the easiest part actually to get it to work.

But what you want to happen on stage is the hardest part. And I'll give you an example about four years ago, this is four years in the making. I got nowhere going with this four years ago. I had this image in my head of this huge blackboard, like the old school blackboards with chalk on it. And, uh, this flow chart of like a tournament.

And I had this image in my head and I said, Oh, I want something to do with this. I want to have like this huge two-meter by two-meter, a chalkboard with the flow chart. And eventually, I'll, I don't know, predicted the last one, but I have no idea what I actually that's like the abstract that's the image I want, but I have no idea what I actually want to happen stage.

So that's one example, a different example, which actually got to working is this thing I've been doing in my show for the past few years now, that relates to people's personal, a moment of embarrassment, like, Oh wow. Can you think of something embarrassing? I'm not totally sure. That's fine. If you want, you can tell us.

Okay. So the thing is this. Usually these stuff, we don't want to talk about them, but I want to, one day something embarrassing happened to me. It wasn't such a big deal, but the thing was this when I told my friends about it because I found it funny, a lot of them said, Oh, something similar happened to me, and so on and so on. So that was the point I realized that a lot of this stuff are really common to everyone, but we don't talk about them because we feel they're so embarrassing. Right. And I wanted to give my audience that feeling of. It's okay, you're not alone. This stuff that you feel are so significant to you in a bad way are actually very common that happens to a lot of other people also. 

Jonathan Levi: Right. That's actually a really nice segue to another question I wanted to ask you, which is I had the privilege of seeing the evolution of your talk as we worked in the workshops together and things like that. And I remember the original talk was, we're all very similar. Trust me, I've read all your minds, something along those lines.

And, and so I wanted to ask, you know, where are people similar? I mean, besides the embarrassing moments and how are we all the same, and how do people sometimes forget that? 

Daniel Harel: Okay. So it's not that we're all the same is in this like very new age, collective thing. It's not, I'm not going to tell you that you're a, not a unique snowflake or something like that, but here's the thing.

We are very similar. We're all humans. We are very similar and we tend to forget it. Now, one of the earliest forms of mentalism is a technique called cold reading, which actually lecture about, because it's mostly used today by, uh, charlatans who do mediumship and a tarot reading and stuff like that.

And again, for those of you who like these kinds of stuff, I'm not saying that everybody are charlatan, but I personally, I've never met one who wasn't, but I am willing if you know someone and you think they're legit, I'm very much willing to meet them and see for myself. But here's the thing, the technique, which I do those lectures and expose on a relies mostly on using verbal manipulation in order to give the person, hearing those readings, the impression that you can actually no secret information about them without actually knowing everything. It's basically for those of you do, um, cybersecurity, it's basically a phishing scam.

It's basically just looking for those cues, as you're saying, sort of like, uh, metaphors and stuff like that. And, um, there are guides that teach how to do it. And the basic element is that the most basic element is there are three things that everybody, all people care about. And that's how you should lead off with your reading because it's based on the premise that whoever comes to that reading wants to know, and he has something that's, uh, been sitting on his mind for some time.

So the basic three elements are love, money, and health issues. Okay. So these are things that we tend to feel that are oh, this is something that's very close to me and, uh, it's so personal, but the fact is that one out of every three people will be obsessing over the same subject. Just like you. So that's like the basic of cold reading.

You want to impress someone? Just tell them, Oh, I'm hearing this voice from the other side. It's your late, late great-grandmother. And she's telling me to tell you, Oh, don't worry about the money. That's something that always works, always works. Everyone can relate to it, but the moment it gets more and more deep and you get into more and more specific stuff.

It seems more real and more, Oh, this is completely about me. And the thing is that a and that's something, a mathematician, a friend of mine once told me, you don't need to think how these statements relate to me. You need to think how do they relate to everyone else? Right. And, um, that's how I got around to doing that, to thinking about that a bit with the embarrassing situations because there's this concept called the spiral of silence where you think that there is one main, uh, idea that everyone agree upon and you don't agree with it. 

But because you think that everyone agrees about it, so you don't talk about it because you don't want to feel embarrassed. You don't want people to think that you're weird or whatever. So again and again, you don't talk about it. And ah the thing is it's called the spiral of silence because the more people don't talk about it, the more everybody thinks that that subject is closing.

There was nothing to talk about because everybody are probably thinking the same thing. And, uh, that's exactly the same thing with the embarrassing situations and with a lot of stuff in life, we don't share these things. So we're certain that we're the only ones that feel those things.

And, uh, it really made me feel sad in a way because you feel so alone where when you have some problem and you think no one can relate to that problem, but you don't really actually try to talk with anyone about that problem. Wow. And because you think, Oh, no one will be able to relate because no one ever told me that they had that problem.

So you can see the vicious magical circle here. 

Jonathan Levi: Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a really big takeaway that, you know, coming from someone who has, drudged out, brought out so many people's different embarrassing moments, fears, anxieties, first-grade teachers.

Daniel Harel: Is it important to say that I don't do anything in my shows with someone who don't want to do it, obviously. If you don't want to request. 

Jonathan Levi: Of course. But I think the point there, it's super interesting that you know, you're not unique in your needs and your fears and your anxieties and your priorities. 

Because so many people are so similar. I think we forget that a lot. Yeah. We forget that a lot. Daniel, what are you working on now? This episode will come out a couple of months from now. So you can kind of give us a peek into what you're working on. You said  big projects. I'm hoping you can tell us about it.

Daniel Harel: Okay. So. I'm actually working on two new stuff, doing new projects right now, one of them I'll be able to tell you more. One of them will be able to tell you less because it's wrapped up in like confidentiality agreements and stuff like that. But, uh, the first thing is, uh, the live shows, uh, which are done at, uh, every Sunday at the Cafe Yaffo, that's a Sorcerer's Night. That's a, in the flea market in Jaffa, it's completely in English. It's aimed for tourists actually. And I'm working on this new show for that venue. The second thing is I can only say right now that we're going to start shooting it in about a month and, uh, I can't even tell you in what medium and channel you're going to get it on, but it's gonna be really cool.

And it's going to be something completely new. That's never been done before in the field of mentalism because it's going to be completely interactive through the screen. 

Jonathan Levi: Wow. Yeah. Can you tell us what language it's going to be in?

Daniel Harel: Unfortunately, it's going to be in Hebrew because, um, my main, uh, fan base is here in Israel.

So fair enough, unfortunately, but unfortunately for the English speaking, uh, fair enough. Crowd. 

Jonathan Levi: I still maintain it. And I told you this, when I met you, you have to write a book. Whether it's a book sharing the techniques. I don't know if you want to do that, maybe at the end of your career, but even a book, just sharing stories, stories, and kind of some of this journey that you've been on.

Daniel Harel: I'll  keep that in mind. I'm getting used to the idea. 

Jonathan Levi: I'd like to say writing a book is it's like a labor of love, but it's not. Because it's kind of like giving birth it hurts really, really bad, but you're super happy once it's done. Let me ask you this Daniel. If someone wants to get into mentalism and they don't want to go through the process you went through of doing this clandestine operation to spy on people, how would you recommend they go about doing it? 

Daniel Harel: The most basic and, uh, everybody are always saying what's a non-conformist way. The basic conformist way is this, start by doing magic tricks, as basic as possible, like reading magic books, stuff with cards and stuff like that. I also said that I, at some point did those kinds of things. And after about two to three years, that you'll be performing, not practicing at home in front of the mirror, performing for actual people after about two or three years, you'll get this, insight into how people are thinking. 

For example, you would start to realize that once you spread the cards in a certain way, and your voice is pitched in just the right tone, and you say, think of a card, a lot of people will either think of the ACE of spades or queen of heart. 

Jonathan Levi: Okay. So right to us, if that's what you had in mind, I was definitely thinking of the ace of spades, send a tweet to Daniel and to me, and we'll put it in the show notes, his Twitter, although maybe you want to give your Twitter handle.

Daniel Harel: Don't even remember, I'm not in the show notes. 

Jonathan Levi: We'll put in the show notes to us. If you were thinking of the ace of spades, that'd be an interesting experiment or queen of hearts.

Daniel Harel: Mails is usually the ace of spades and females are the queen of hearts. Interesting. And after you do that, these kinds of stuff for long enough, you'll start to realize these kinds of weird cognitive biases that people, uh, react to.

And, or that people use. And that's the time that you're mentally ready to make that deep share of mentalism.

Jonathan Levi: I love that. That's a great starting point for people to play with. You mentioned cognitive biases, which made me think of Dan Ariely. Are there any books on the subject you'd recommend or any books that have inspired you in general?

Daniel Harel: I really love all of Dan Ariely's stuff. Malcolm Gladwell's books really inspired me also. Absolutely. Mostly outliers, which got me to start performing as much as possible and then stop practicing in front of the mirror, right? The 10,000 Hour Rule. Exactly. And that's mostly it. Yeah.

Jonathan Levi: That's a good list. That's a good list. Daniel, if people want to take away one point or idea, or I should say if they take away only one main point or idea from this discussion, what would you like it to be? 

Daniel Harel: I really like people taking away the concept of us not being so different from each other and not so alone.

There was a part in my show, the part that deals with the embarrassing situations, we're asked people to play this game with their hands, and it's built that way so they won't succeed. And that's the starting point where I just, I look at them and I say, okay, here's the thing. When you did not succeed, you were looking at your hands and you were thinking, Oh shit, this is so embarrassing.

And you felt alone and you didn't feel comfortable. And then after like this millisecond, you looked around and you saw that everyone were not succeeding and suddenly it became hilarious. That's like one of those moments in the show where everybody just burst out laughing, and you realize that, once you understand that everybody experienced the same things, it stops being frightening and intimidating and starts to be funny. And that's what I like people to take from the stock. 

Jonathan Levi: That's a wonderful message. And I think we're going to title the blog posts something along those lines. Daniel, if someone wants to engage with you, see your shows or learn more about what you do, where should we send them? 

Daniel Harel: Well, first of all, you can contact me on Facebook. And also you can go to my website, which is www.danielharel.co.il and it's also, there is like this section in English and I post upcoming shows information about upcoming shows and videos from the shows and stuff like that.

And you can contact me through the website also. 

Jonathan Levi: Awesome. And we will put links to all that stuff in the blog post. In case you guys don't get the spelling, right. Daniel, it has been such a pleasure to see you again as always to have my mind read by you. And thanks for making the time. I do hope we keep in touch.

Daniel Harel: Thank you for inviting me. 

Jonathan Levi: All right Superfriends, that's it for this week's episode, we hope you really, really enjoyed it and learn a ton of applicable stuff that can help you go out there and overcome the impossible.

If so, please do us a favor and leave us a review on iTunes or Stitcher, or however you found this podcast. In addition to that, we are. Always looking for great guest posts on the blog or awesome guests right here on the podcast. So if you know somebody or you are somebody, or you have thought of somebody who would be a great fit for the show or for our blog, please reach out to us either on Twitter or by email our email is info@becomingasuperhuman.com. Thanks so much. 

Closing: Thanks for tuning in to the Becoming Superhuman Podcast. For more great skills and strategies, or for links to any of the resources mentioned in this episode, visit www.becomingasuperhuman.com/podcast. We'll see you next time.