Richard Turner — The Magical Phenom Who Will Blow Your Mind | The Tim Ferriss Show

[Music] 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 start 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 have wanted ask so many questions and I thought we would start maybe in a place that that would be unexpected for people listening I'm not going to start way at the beginning in 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 with the Grand Ole Opry is to country-western music it's the premium place for magicians to perform or around the world and they have what is the equivalent of the Oscar at the Academy of magical arts awards AMA awards and but we uh it's a twenty seven thousand square foot Victorian mansion built 1907 and there's you go in strictly for adults 21 or over must have ID back to the old days you have to have coat and tie you cannot over dress if you're underdressed they don't let you they don't like what you just they don't let you in and in this by invitation only but it's just a very very fun venue in place to perform I just got returned from perform at the castle night before last I just forgot that you've one of the busiest schedules I've ever heard of and I've met some very very driven busy people but the Magic Castle has been this 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 blew my mind to see the variety of skill and the level of skill in the various rooms because there are these these different rooms for different perform performers and different types of performances do you speak to and I I hope I'm getting this name right dai vernon oh yes you got it right so who is Diver Ninh and how did you first meet well dive Vernon first of all was born in 1894 he lived to be over 98 years old my wife my beautiful wife Kim and I threw him his 90th 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 Budin had a boat that he could he solved the same trick three times he could figure it out Vernon did did it for him five times he couldn't figure it out and 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 more than Talent you just have to pay two hundred thousand dollars to buy this big illusion it turns a cat into a person you know inside of a cage or whatever and then there's the parlor magician whether the link rings and make eggs come out of their mouths or whatever something along those lines were a smaller audience but that's called parlor magic then there's the close-up magician who will do stuff right in front of your eyes like no make coins jump from one hand to the other and or they'll do card tricks but 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 sleight of hand nowadays with the internet just about everything is exposed and Vernon wanting to know about Morgan about more about the moves of the gamblers first read a book a night you've written in 1902 called expert at the card table by SW herb days and nobody's knows who earn days was and at that time the magicians in the nineteen teens and 20s they oh we don't care about that but that stuff's too hard to learn and Vernon had it mastered by time he was like twelve years old and and so he spent his life hunting down hustlers he was the first one that found Alan Kennedy a 1930-31 who supposedly could deal cards from the middle of the deck which no one thought that was possible and so that and that information was the most closely guarded pieces of sleight of hand that you can get ahold of if she'd get ahold of it he had passes on just special people like Charlie Miller and a few others and he I met him in 1975 I argue I'll tell you a quick backstory yeah it doesn't have to be quick okay please go ahead I was working with a guy named Bob Yorkist whitey rkts he was just at my show on Sunday he's gonna turn 87 next month he's been in stunts he's been stunt business for 73 years his first movie was in 1947 with Elizabeth Taylor and he's doubled everybody Under the Sun literally thousands of stunts in on television thousands of stunts in film I could move the earth telling infernal or earthquake he died seven times in earthquake there now died of multiple times in towering frontal and on and on he was on the move recently with Tom Hanks on angels and demons he was the minister that was being burned alive and they forgot to turn the fan on to blow him out and Tom Hanks says well Lee she didn't have to act because he was an actor he was free but anyway but anyway so I was working with him we were training that it was a show called circus of the stars we trained celebrities do circus acts and I was from better or worse I'll just call her Mike got his gopher and but I lived with him and he's a dear dear dear friend for a husband 50 almost 50 years and and so we were trading for the circuses of stars and a Linda Carter show called Wonder Woman and I died Verne and heard I could do some very 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 always had a yoicks at that time stacks of 20s which was a lot of money for me and that's why it went to the Northridge shopping center set my deck of cards on a coat rack started thumbing through coats your sales guy comes up to me and says I'll set your high card for that goat I thought to myself this is my luck you did I said no no I'm just kidding nice to tell you what I took out two twos and a queen as it come over to your desk here I've moved him I said if you tell me where that cleaners I'll pay double for the coat I break down if you get it wrong you give it to me for free and he goes really I said really well I threw those cars and darn if he doesn't miss it I should tell you what I bet the Cody gets a pair of pants if you can't go back he goes okay lost again I said take coat pants against a shirt and tie he's okay but it's the last one and he lost again so I walked out of there dip but the brand new suit didn't pay a dime and if I would have known he was gonna go for it I wouldn't have picked off the cheapest coat the place was a pretend corduroy piece of crap that I still have today because it's how I first met Vernon and so I still have the silver there but anyway so I get to the castle and and he Vernon there was two guys in the room dai vernon and this was in the library which is separate closed off to the public and in another guy named Tony Giorgio who's best known as the actor in the movie Godfather he prayed blade Runa to tag Leah which was video called Ionians toughest head spread and there's a scene in the movie where a guy takes a knife and stabs his hand in the bar yeah the guy with that knife that was Tony Jordans Tony and he was a bust out man back in the 40s and 50s what is bust out man the bus stop man is somebody who a casino will have on hand oh hey that's Tim Ferriss he's got some money okay Tony take him out fast so bust out man means that are gonna take you down they're gonna take you down quick get that one from you or if it turns out that that Tim Ferriss he was just too lucky okay Joe you're out here Tony you're in get that money back and getting back means bust you out fast I'm using car technique uses sleight of hand using car techniques exactly the agam removes whatever it whatever his artifice was Fabia's that shapes a peak with a second deal and then one more time a peak that was he would peak the top card and we know it's 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 final hearts okay and as as he would yield to the other players see that's hard it's not moving it's for the for those who can't see what we're doing I'm dealing the cards 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 of my cake like here's even with one hand no and it works when the cards face down I turn it face down now you're watching and you can't tell that you've been swindle he would take him down and so then it became an actor in their 60s and anyway so at the table was diverting 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 because we had battles for all together 38 years but we battle each other for 20 years and at first I was no threat today I'm showing Vernon my moves and he goes Vernie goes well now that's alright but but I don't care how fine you breathe when you're moving your hand like that it's unnatural it's a tips you often every time I did anything giorgio chip has seen from the other table not involved in our little private yet yeah they would yell we'll get the money we'll get the money and then I show something we'll get the money we'll get the money what is it well we'll get them on it yet the man you will not get the money but it was won't get the money which is in other words it's not good enough for the card table and so that's just that is the sleight of hands smack talk that is yes that is back dog that if the money that is like your mama type of line eggs at the card table yeah exactly won't get the money here you get a double banger you shot twice and and so but Vernon then I showed him the move I just showed you and that technique he thought that was kind of clean it wasn't more natural and so I remember Lee said and I went home and that practice he said I don't care how much you move your hand no matter how fine that brief is it's unnatural action so naturalness that's why I've learned from burden that Vernon naturalness you have to be natural in your execution and and so I practiced it the next time he saw me goes down that's better that's better and they took it and he took a liking to me because he would see that I would put in I practice at that time and this is I and it's not an exaggeration even though I almost wish it was because I I would practice it average of 14 hours a day that was my average time practicing but sometimes it might be only 10 hours because I spent extra time in the gym because I was training for some kind of a fight or in other days I got up at 6:00 in the morning went to bed at 3:00 and I might have may have practiced 20 hours that day but my average practice time was 20 it was 14 hours and that was sustained for 26 years seven day seven days a week and Vernon saw this obsession in me and so he took me on as a well a student protege and to cut to the chase I became the recipient of essentially worth of his most guarded card-table artifice that techniques that he traveled the world I find on these hustlers and learning their moves and 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 a bad but that Benjamin Franklin said three people could have a secret but you have to kill two of them so if if we talk about you or practice because your your practice and work ethic it struck me when I first saw dealt it struck me as I've done homework and 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 - first of all I say practice does not make perfect so they say practice makes perfect no practice does not make perfect perfect practice makes perfect right you can practice something wrong when you're done it's perfectly wrong and I see it in my industry all the time they'll practice a second deal in some awkward fashion where are the most common one is a strike second I'll give a visual clue picture the card is turned face up on the deck they'll though hold first of all usually they hold the deck in real tight what's called a mechanic's grip a real deep grip and I'll lighten up the grip a little bit and then when they go to take the card they'll bypass the card they've taken is so they can just hit the second card and deal it out and and that this tip this is the standard second do that you'll see people do it has all kinds of tell and has a lot of tone first of all you're pushing the top card over to receive it with the other hand so why is the right thumb bypassing that left them in this because so they as exposure of 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 then and that you don't have a dead deck when efference students and who became a P reference was a guy named tar Charlie Miller who had the privilege of spending time with and they grew up all through the thirties forties 50 60 70 80 80 's and Miller talks about a dead deck when you're dealing the top card everything below it there's no movement 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 movement of two different movements there's second card coming out the top card going back now watch my second deal there's the there's no I'm not crossing the thumbs at all and my left thumb is there's no leaking of the car and right at the other other corner and I'm not going anywhere near the top of the deck and this that particular second DUI I have practiced I've done 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 and I I proclaimed as I say that it's probably most difficult move and 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 watched my videos for thirty years now and uh but it just takes a long time but anybody get off off a track practice does not make perfect perfect practice makes perfect same thing with in the martial arts you know you saw a sidekick your other people dose will pick kick up as they go you lift it and you shoot it in my cut I come like a blade like as you practice it wrong you said they're practicing blow 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 like to say [Music] discipline breeds discipline they say how do you put in time and when I'm telling people when they want to train or something I say the more you do something the more you can do have a 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 online the next day walk the distance of three houses come back then the next day jog down the distance and come back and then eventually your body starts adapting to the habit 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 a sub-discipline breeds this one I love the 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 it's an embarrassment of riches as 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 you've flown on a trapeze tightrope walks you have iPhones yeah high falls you've done it I've you've done an incredible amount of physical cultivation and I have have a line here so on March 5th of this year you will have not missed a workout in 49 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 workout 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 and I would get beat up or I'd get pushed around and then we watched and then we haven't really got off on this point yet yeah at nine years old I started losing my sight all right my sister Lori who I called my genius sister because he's brilliant and I we both got scarlet fever I was nine 1963 she was five and that caused with for me within a matter of moments I'm fourth grade watching that's chalkboard and all of a sudden it just went blurred it was like someone takes the chart the chalkboard smeared the chalk it was that something it was that set in the same way with my sister one minute in this she went from from full sight to legally blind and I sell now I'm we were forced in second third and fourth grade to watch would be called Lord of the Flies and an ice 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 at the Bupa boys they were ball-like between probably eight to twelve years old 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 can 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 and I'm just definitely sick because we were very poor our house literally was a structure sat on a ditch about a six foot 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 or five six inches of water under it which means molds and I was definitely allergic to bowls and I would just get extremely ill and so I was now I'm blind had asthma and I was skinny he would chubby pig he was blind asthma and he was chubby and so I thought I don't want to be a picky I don't wanna 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 a guy named Leland you know picks a fight with me and and and I get hurt Doug Ferguson beat me up and others anyway so I I didn't want that and then there was another show that affected my what kind of caused me to go are off the charts the other direction was called lost in space and there was a little boy on there Billy Mumy play Will Robinson and there was the man on the show dr. 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 mama mummy would save the day that little kid and I thought he's brave and I was afraid of turned out like dr. Smith and then that and then the third thing was Tarzan movies they just see them walk across a tree go a spanning two cliffs that maybe a hundred feet down a thousand feet down and they know there was always the guy that turn around save whatever you do don't look down and then there were the next guy would be the coward would look down and go 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 and and growing up that I had three three movies on the other side that affected me one was Ben Hur starring Charlton house Charlton Heston there's a scene in the movie where he's pulling the oars with his big bulging biceps and that image is strength what you know made me want to be strong I want to be strong I wanna I want to be strong like him and another one was the Green Hornet starring Bruce Lee as as Kato you know and you know and I I want to take like Kato and and then for the third one was was the one that really probably set my life on fire was James Garner in maverick he was the cool slick gambler and I want to be a card shark 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 going to bench more whatever their split was I got to write to do a 200 degree split in fact I do there was even video out there I'm stretched across three chairs and I'll touch my head to the floor and so anyway I wish 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 top people in the top 1% and I've trained with some very world-class athletes you know and I either trained them or trained with them and and and people have a hard time you Frank keeping up well I mean you're you're still an extremely fit guy you told me before we started recording that you worked out of five this morning yeah whether they accept it and you understand this sure Nathalie it yourself you know that's that's another great thing I I do cuz it wakes me up it gets it gets the adrenaline going the endorphins shooting and and because I had I chose all week last week every day and and I flew in last night at 9:00 a at 9:00 p.m. and I've thought okay I need to be on my on my best game I'm meeting Tim Ferriss 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 that what's the best late first person says best relaxed get rate uh uh I was in the gym and then all of a sudden I'm started at five and I would it's oh my goodness after seven I've been in here for two hours and 11 minutes my rides gonna be here in 49 minutes - to the down to fish tacos that my wife made if she makes the best fish tacos anywhere on the planet my life Kim and I down those things and then shower and here we are and here we are and as you mentioned we hadn't covered and hadn't talked about cited or the the other CBS the and is it at Albany Syndrome child Vinay syndrome that's a French English is Charles bonnet syndrome especially in Texas and I did and I and I didn't bring it up earlier very deliberately because I want people to understand that you're incredibly deft technical mastery of what you do stands on its own head-to-head against any one period full stop so I wanted to make sure she ate 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 these the Charles Burnett syndrome but I didn't want to lead with it but but since since it came up and and we chatted very briefly about this before we started recording could you please talk to me about the red and blue spectrum because because I've heard you or I've and I've read you say that you you can see things where 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 Chawan a syndrome is first documented 1760 by Charles Burnett John Burnett and it's a very rare condition and dr. Oliver Sacks he's a best-selling often I'm sure amazing author yes I'm sure you've met yes two books one called hallucinations the other one called the mind's eye where he goes into specifics on CBS and he's probably documented more cases than anybody and up till 1990 there was only six documented cases and then he's now in six ups nineteen ninety nine ninety haha and then he's documented a few others and I'm Paul I'm the most extreme case on the planet most people what it first of all let's kind of give you a picture view of what CBS is Chobani and that's where you see a person that's blind and should see nothing will see sporadic colors or splatters or pieces of images or or just some visual things almost like hallucinations right and there's sporadic in my case I'm it's 100% 24/7 and it's not just just part of my vision I see a one hundred and sixty degree kaleidoscope of beautiful vivid colors pattern shapes every subconscious image you can imagine and I don't see them in the back of the brain like when you dream in or imagining I look at them I see it in front of me I see them in external space just like you're seeing me in external space like an object 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 neuroscientist that was doing some interviewing me for some projects and stuff and he said the red spectrum which is more geometric shapes 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 there's a perfect rectangle bricks later just like a brick missiles in the red or in this the red this is the red okay and then there's us always maroon which is my favorite color one of my favorite color the red spectrum so the brick what would be 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 net in my brain okay that's the respect to me said that's the 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 you know their analytical the other is the blue spectrum which is very artistic there's no R and it's not as as totally random if you picture I call it like breaststroke breaststroke I like this too yeah oh but there's only two breasts that I'm allowed to stroke they belong to KITT okay and I don't want any slaps um you know okay this is so good brush strokes is right you see we're buying my mind is right now I just got in a week from wait a week for a way from my beautiful wife okay so brass I did you get brush I'm taking Freddie ins slips off all week and they're more frightening the better it is so them in the blue you of these brush strokes rush Stokes and then in the royal blue - blue - turquoise blue - sky-blue - emerald green - lime green all the way down that that spectrum and they're just random strokes and and then floating around is like I said every subconscious image you can imagine and just pick yourself underwater in a pool with the light coming in and the light spectrum breaking down on like a prism rent break some lights maybe so all these colors just floating around is all the images are two-dimensional but they're layered three dimensionally if you can picture that so I have hands of glass yes it just back and forth your depth forward and and the thing about it is I can take any particular image um and I probably I'm I'm oh I won't get slapped but she Michael I can like I take a picture of image of my beautiful wife in her bikini mhm and I can you take it zoom it in rotate it you know or or where I use it most is if I create a designing them like I don't design about my own homes mhm and or I like it patio Jack and my wife Kim I tell you I'm sitting in my chair and I'm watching in full 3-dimension like virtual reality I basically live in virtual reality and so my whole my my spectrum is my own computer so I wanted to design a Dell and I built this three level deck and I would say okay I need four by twelves posts now for my tone across there and then enough to buy sections I'll anchor in there and you'll watch me we were looking back and forth engineering this giant projects with a giant project with a thousand cuts it was three levels stairway hanging swings built in flower flower beds and without a single piece of paper then I'd 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 well he was one of my my role models but but I can't tell him or my wife what I'm going to do because I can't explain a thousand cuts and what I'm doing is all in here and so then we would start putting it together and then here watch this whole thing from the other girls now I understand what you say what you were talking about doing so that's one of the ways that I'll use it and probably the thing I use it all mostly is like how I remember phone number I can write the number down in the air I'll see you floating in the air just like you'd see it on a computer screen my mind takes a picture of it and I have what's called an eidetic memory and then I just files away I bring it back out or would I practice it with cards I will and I do this every time I'm at a restaurant or when 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 jet create the image and it's not flesh like you have it's more of a conglomeration of all kinds of 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 color in the same way you would see it but I'd well see the thing the the image of the constructed within my mind what I'm looking at and then I'll analyze it now then I'll be in the and I'll see everything going on yeah there's a solid object between me and what I'm looking at all right but yet here's the interesting thing if I turn like this can't do it if you turn your hand if I turn my head I have to be looking at the object like my medicine cabinets an example I have a friend who's a writer he thought this was interesting my medicine count on one where is that Campbell for nique okay and now you see everything in my medicine cabinet going down ah there it is and I'm seeing everything yet the doors closed well okay but now if I turn late this way I have to see it my mind I can't see it in front of me oh wow kind of interest that's fascinating and in there but anyway so I I considered a real blessing that I have have this strange condition and because I use it all the time and uh like I said I consider myself very very blessed and and within seconds you are I can shake someone's hand and I usually I can tell their height weight characteristics about them and my mind will create an image what I think they look like in my mind sometime they totally all left field but you know creators of my own impression of the Hammerson and then when they're talking I will see some strange looking conglomeration mouth moving even though it's not less a flesh-colored but it flesh looking or human looking but it samples the best representation of a movement in motion well if you think about it also 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 there they're both representations in a way if that makes sense and I wanted to ask a few follow-up questions with the the a Didache memory the photographic memory is that's something that you had partially or fully before losing your sight or is it something that was developed over time a bit of both it was something I had before him I remember when I was five years old in kindergarten and we were finger-painting class mm-hm and I had a picture of a National Geographic image that I saw of a seascape and so all these other kids are just doing the finger painting their nose and their ears and their hair and their table and I come up with this seascape a night into this to this day was 60 years later over 60 years later I still see the exact thing that I created sixty years later and it was your start off with the the the ground and then I had seaweed I'm sorry I touched your deck forgive me okay seaweed growing up and there would be a nurse's corner I had a jellyfish with the things coming down and a shark in the middle and just different things that I that I replicated from an image I saw in a National Geographic look and and so from from the ages five six seven eight I was the best artist in the school and I could like beside see a picture and I could pretty much replicate it and and then the problem and then were nice you know nine and I had scarlet fever then I started losing that ability being wrong I must have been really difficult I would imagine I mean how that was very difficult and that was probably where some rebellion took place I was shipped off to a special school where they had what it was called a v-8 room back then visually handicapped and now you say visually impaired you know politically much more polite then visually handicapped and I hated the word handicapped and that despise the word blind when I was you know had to go to the school and my sister Lori she only went there one year she got she rebelled so much she said put me back on a regular school she refused to continue to go but my vision was worse than hers at the time and so I she was able to get away with it I was not and so in the school the best artist was a code name Sharon Coleman and she was the best artist where I was always the best artist here nor angka in first second third fourth grade now I've said nobody knows who I am nobody cares on Sharon she's the one that does the best artwork and and so there was a guy in VH Department there was about a dozen of us that and we'd go to it was a regular school but they had a VH Department Viet visually handicapped department and one of the guys in the v8 room was guy named Reuben corral who because he was from Mexico was like twice my size and it was 2 to 3 years older than I was but he were in the same grade because he didn't have the opportunity to go to special school and he would just scribble he couldn't draw it also and he got deadly good so he got attention for just doing crap and so I started doing crap I started showing my skills with the best I could I started I just started going the other direction and just scribbling although I did do one three-dimensional project that dr. Sam Kumbi was a teacher I did a sculpture and I still have it in my office you can still see it today of of a Buddha monk and a bald head in and anyway in the end it was all what would the word it was all properly proportioned and I got a in that for that lunging and that's why the few things that I do I still have from that but that was a three-dimensional thing why didn't you keep that because I got it because it was actually I think you should know does it I did a good job but there's that's a also an astute question on your end because I there was other pieces I did and in high school I did a collage and and I I was just rushing through my art class because I could do stuff and if you got seven and a half points you got it a-and I could have my art projects done within up the first month of the semester and I already got my so I did I could mess around after that and I did this one project I don't even know what was to this day I don't know what was so good about it but we had a teacher was mr. sueños his assistant told members name when 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 in the hallway if the high school you know those little slides where the lock doors lock Windows Nate and and then when I said oh I can't get my our project block and they went there notice it was gone no breaking there was no glass broken so we figured the student that claimed it to be his that entered it obviously went off with it but other projects after that I started I would have to get my a build my project and you know especially the three-dimensional ones right it's good at and then I prefer I purposely sabotage them could you fire them in a kiln yeah and and if you have something that's air in it it is completely sealed it blow up so I'd make my project get my grade on it and then went out to go have it fired I'd purposely put in either a ball of clay with a hole in it right that's it would have sealed air in it or build something in it so when it was fired it blow up why didn't you know cuz I just I I was I was angry that I lost I was little I was losing my vision and losing my ability to paint and draw on and so this was just one of the ways I was being ornery and just rebelling against my my loss so I would love to ask you about and this is fair from the very first moment that I saw the documentary of I've wanted to ask you about anger and rage because one of my first thoughts upon watching the documentary which was very emotional for me to be honest 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 in a different for different reasons but consumed I was by anger or driven by it at the very least how did you 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 questions yeah you can break it up into any huge segments yeah at the time I try to just describe how I dealt with some of my anger and that was self-destructive and I had gone into other self-destructive behavior and I leaves late 60s Begins 70s and so for about three years drugs was a part of that as an act of rebellion and and and and purposely not trying to do my best the only thing I did worked at that worked out was cards and I would play cards with people and I would take their money and in wit my dug my dragon partner named Doug Ferguson who died from hepatitis from dirty needles and he would have me he would have me play cards against other drug dealers and to cheat him or tricked him out of their money and that's how we supported ourselves and we well we made our money to buy and sell and so that was kind of I actually that was kind of a power the only power that I had the rest of the time I was laughed at and there would be times where we would be doing something drug and then when I'd come out of a stupor a blur they'd be laughing at me and and and they were they were at first they were the only people that accepted me because there I was this is the drug the drug the drug crowd except they don't we don't care if you can't say you know come on over and there were just the regular students were were more discriminating towards some of us in the VH rooms and then 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 of their of amusement for them and and then event and then I I met a guy and and and then we go on another little tangent here yeah it was a verse in the Bible said God created us in His image and that 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 doctor God took dirt made eyeball God did dirt in made a brain God took dirt and made a bird and and I I remember watching an episode of kung-fu and they said who would teach me about the universe the universe will teach you and I thought well that's like saying the wall would teach me but who built the wall the wall who built the Statue of Liberty there wasn't the Statute of Liberty didn't build the Statue of Liberty so then I start thinking what what me and the image of God okay God created the bird man took dirt and we created a jet got to dirt made I we took dirt made a camera there staring us all over the place Gajic dirt and made a brain we took dirt and made a computer what's in the ship and oh here's base and dirt just about everything in this room and one fashion or another came from dirt and so I thought okay that means I can create and so um I went another direction I got heavily into the martial arts started in nineteen March 5th 1971 and micron instructor was a man named John Murphy that positive for once are you so what sit ated that 90-degree turn or that 180 was there a conversation or a particular day more what catalyzed what catalyzed that turn was I was with some friends and they wanted to watch a movie called Fantastic Voyage which was a movie about shrinking down us us a ship a submarine and then setting it into a by the guy's body he'll go into his heart and to try to fix it okay and they've said hey fantastic voyages on let's get some angel dust and watch the movie and then they end and so I I realize I gotta stop this and there was something out there saying you need to stop it or you can end up dead like belly Macomb and I had a half a dozen well that's a dozen friends who have now od'd and were dead and and I thought 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 part Wales park and I asked them if they had any ancient us they said we have something better I said with that they said a relation with the creator of everything you see I said you mind if I stayed 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 that that one word that I said I was going to change my directions around and and then you mentioned the martial arts and Murphy that was that that was what that was I'm a very I could every moment of my life is like a video I can watch in pin and on every any exact image or moment that was a February 13 71 you know three weeks later you know March 5th my brother who was seven years younger than me he's nine and he was taking karate and I wanted to take party because I was tired of it yeah I'll get beat up I'll get off a little tangent I entered another art competition when I was 11 and I was I had to have my nose like two inches from the canvas as I painted these three bosses they with proper shadow lights coming in you got first place these two boys didn't like that there's blind kids got first place and they called me mr. medulla there was a cartoon out at that time I was writing Jim Backus called mr. Magoo Lucy's kind of this goofy sighted person that just went through life jolly just missing trains and planes trains and automobiles and that was me and so they would say that said the bird in front of my face is a Heimlich ooh how many fingers am i holding up and we're lastest fact just try his friend picked a wallet on my back pocket then dangled in front of my face said he Magoo got any money when I grabbed for my wallet he didn't throw it over my head to his friend behind me and a cool game of keep-away and they kept every time I turn around grabbed it let's just keep going back and forth over my head and then finally when I'm started literally slapping me across the cheeks with my own lawn Wallace ain't 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 for the hot dog Magoo cuz I had $3 in there for me $3 was I'm a 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 so that jumps forward to the martial arts is that where were ya and anyway sweat brother was taken cut out they and so I wanted to go down and they they gave him warning well you know this guy can't see in and Murphy he didn't care if you're blind deaf or dumb he's enemy please let my sensei sensei dumber he was a year ahead of Chuck Norris he was a class of 57 Norris class started in 58 and he opened up Murphy opened up his school in Tijuana in 1960 and he was the first white guy who was called like I'd Caucasian he was Irish to get a black belt in Japan yeah in this particular system what a fact which is a kind of a cross between Shotokan and Taekwondo or you know it combines hands and feet where one Shotokan six Shotokan versus the number one style was really basically mini hands anyway he said we'll take him we'll take him then first he told him don't hurt him in the first and the girls I'd get beat up by the girls I'd be get beat up by the old ladies ladies that we would know well who would be their driver you old enough to be my mother and it was all I could do to keep from ended up on the ending up on the floor and so I realized okay I gotta I gotta start getting better this and at that time I weighed 110 pounds and I got my four five nine and Murphy still can't watch you start takin you need to start lifting weights because you gotta put some meat on those bones so I started punching pushing weights and I went to gene Fisher's gym and Fisher he held the world's record for the curl at that time 1963 221 pounds total 21 reported and 226 unrecorded and and of course he was in the 200 pound category and so at that time I weighed 130 130 pounds and got 230 pounds in a 130 pounds I could pull down to 20 and he would have to pull me down lock me in do my reps lifting back up I could I was about 250 on the bench at that time at 130 pounds and and then Murphy would say pushed me the point where I could do 500 push-ups in 12 minutes 9 seconds which is my record but he is 500 push-ups made 15 minutes which was actually real world class time the record of thinking I can do 500 push-ups in 15 days you're just listen to him say that tim is an athlete tim is probably just as crazy as I am Oh being modest right now I'm just telling you because he doesn't want speak for himself listen to what I'm saying everybody Tim I felt him out when we first got together and I mean that in a nice way okay check those forearms just forms Popeye I know jealous Popeye you jealous Olive Oyl he's over here okay so 500 push-ups thing you were saying that during the 20 that I slipped here earlier before the reported reference in time was 9.19 hundred hours so as well I was world class time you know 15 in in one quarter the time one fourth in Florida at Joe's and then and that's when I travel around with that briefcase with 120 pounds 20 pounds in dumbbells it would be broken apart put together on the road do my exercises and so on anyway so Lynn Murphy says you would pay me more weight and so he said tell one's taking vitamins vitamins every day so I start eating vitamins he said protein powders so I've found for the past 50 years almost 49 years every morning I'd throw everything onto the side throw my vitamin tablets in the blend and blend them up with with the protein powder and then I came up with the best drink for if you wanna you have two choices burn up or work out like a madman and I call it liquid hell alright and what it is you take water as your base yeah and that put in shifts brewers yeast which really is tasty tastes bad yeah I put it half a banana for potassium and three to four to six jalapeno peppers blend it up and it yeah you got two choices you either worked out or you just sweats just start pouring out your head and my my workout partner Jim Bowers who you probably saw in delt he was the one that was talking about riding on the back of my motorcycle tell me where to go and he said when he first started carotid college I said okay you have to have some liquid hell and either the first time he did it threw up in the sink and then I said you're not wasting that Lake Liddell you drank the rest of that and so he got it down in it and he couldn't go through a final without traveling is liquid hell because it stimulated his brain in the spine anyway so but it's not for sissies I'll just say that anyway so that's what I would drink to to just boost the the energy level and anyway so I finally put on some weight and then I remember 1980 is when I broke at 160 got 160 pounds and then I kept pressing and I got up to I I worked out with a Joe Doug no Lee who was mr. universe at his place and he had I got up to 340 on the bench that's why I topped out at and I weighed in at 168 and and today when I got my first black belt my first degree black belt and Murphy wanted the hardest test and it was considered the hardest test at the time you had to fight a tan round out with a fresh fighter each round ten three-minute rounds and he didn't care 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 t1 so that's where is school yet school in the States and another main question for you is it true that you were offered an honorary black belt yes because I and you did not accept no but you get my first belt I had to fight one round three minutes and plus all the Connors nothing about Connors because my eidetic memory I could memorize them in one day right yeah and in fact when I when I got my fourth degree by blood ayah at a sixth degree black belt Tata that I learned in one day the guy who went through it and then the next thing he sees it on family goes I can't believe you did it we just you just I just showed that to you bla bla bla globe just days before you know and for those people who don't know kata is a predetermined sequence of moves that you perform alone exactly doing punches kicks blocks counters in the yeah so that it's like a martial arts dance right so six degree black belt kata would be like someone being shown a sort of very complex and halftime performance at the Super Bowl dance routine and then being able to replicate it shortly thereafter perfectly perfectly explained exactly Tim and so I guess it caught us and all that stuff down overnight right right off the bat it was the fighting because just let you understand how I was seeing at the time because I had some vision at that time my teens and 20s my vision was measured at 20 over 420 over 450 with no center vision because my macula which is the center of the eye was gone okay so there's no macula 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 24 450 so 2,200 is legally blocked 2050 is you have to have at least 2050 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 cockeyed I was wondering about that because I noticed that in the footage from the documentary yeah Gannett's you're looking at your peripheral vision yes because I had no forward vision though and and that's how I know what I'm looking at people at that time now I have no vision at all but at that time if I if I couldn't see anything I knew I was looking right at you which is anyway so um because my first first belt yellow was one fight green belt had five 2-minute rounds five bouts five rounds two with a fresh fight or two-minute rounds and on a scale of one to ten I trained I practiced sights and I thought okay 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 it was August 2nd 1972 and it was over a hundred degrees outside and our dojo was in Tijuana as I said there was a solid block brick blah submit block building no windows no air conditioning even a fan wood floor scratched up wood floor and whenever they would have tests all the it was like blood sports like fights and so all the sadistic people would come out to watch whenever they hear that the good INGOs 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 a pre-show before the big show the war love that whatever is a I was the warm-up act and so I get out there thinking and and it was because we're all crammed into these little thing that humidity factor was in there huh and then 90s yeah so before I even started on porn I was gasps refreshed whose eyes did my first a toccata group then I did my defense I was already gasping and then I start my first round and right before we start at Murphy's the rule was we would respect each other's head if you don't hit me in their face I won't hit you in the face body's open target no limit okay the groin shots everything the way we would respect each other's needs no knee shots everything else is open if you hit me in the face then the face becomes an open target and so Murphy said now if these guys start hitting you in the face don't think about it just keep fighting and at that time I thought what I thought we were gonna mark our shots to the face and within the first three first few seconds of the first round Bam Bam Bam three shot Bam Bam Bam right in my face and I'm going oh my god yeah yeah yeah I'm fine I was fighting for my life because they didn't like us Green goes down there everything was just set in you know discriminate against there had the black clam or the black fighters back federation and the mexican fighters and their gringos right and I'm so I know the first round I'm not just gasping for air second round that this guy watched the Bruce Lee will be a mentor the dragon or knows before that Fist of Fury where he does a step uphill who expends around with another he'll cook i catched the one I I blocked out boom only get nailed with with the other one coming around the other way and third round this guy would like me so I kept getting knees in the groin fourth round the guys was even stands he switched stances on me grab my front hand went right by me and bam right in my left eye caught on or uzuki or right hand punch and pretty much knocked me out at out now I've seen enough I'm just seein stars and Murphy says wipe off the but don't think about it keep fighting and I'm just holding myself up against the bathroom and I could be I couldn't even kill my hands up by this point and so then the fifth round was probably my best round because I was really a standing I was just a standing I was virtually unconscious and then they yelled Moroz mayor's wife yells tempo which means time in Spanish and the second she railed temple is what I hit the ground so I got it by one second and then I was so exhausted and have an asthma attack I I had to I know I had to stand up you had to battle out and as soon as I thought I hit the ground again now everybody wants to congratulate me I'd stand up again we weren't allowed to have water and so I crawled to the bathroom and John died goes to tell the story but Murphy's bar get mad at me for telling it and when he came to he says that's not the saint you're drinking out of that's the toilet TJ TJ toilet and I go I don't care I was so days and I got gonorrhea oh yeah but anyway so that was screamed out so then I've been brown belt was ten two-minute rounds and Imagi and then I of course on that one I owe I trained my command all because I wasn't gonna have 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 warm up with a four-hour weight workout a four hour for hour and I would start minimum weight all the way up to maximum weight and I do as men know I get to the maximum I do weight lifters many times as I could with a few seconds but many times it good then I'd slowly off just five pounds at a time from 300 from 300 pounds 395 dives to 95 to 98 out to where I had just the bar which is a 45 pound bar and and then that and I do that with every muscle group and then I would do 500 kicks on the heavy bag you know ten roundhouse kicks with us say ten where this what ten tend to a hundred that yeah I do ten side kick with this leg 10 side kick with this like 10 sec another 110 bacterin cakes ten side whatever I was type of cries I kick but you just did five different cakes five hundred times then my trainer he would have a well it looks like a motorcycle seat was a bag and hold it and and with his hand and then I would have to 100 kicks in three minutes and so simulating the three rounds so I've just Bam Bam Bam Bam Bam punch kick punch shake mainly kicking is that that is that exhausts your oxygen supply faster than punching that's why in kickboxing matches they're required to throw a minimum of the six kicks rate kicks and that's because after you start getting tired you just wanna punch takes a fraction a toss it does to take to lift these big muscles up in the air and so I do that and I take it first I'm taking a ten second break to another hundred and ten now it's a 20 second break 100 I do a thousand I do it ten times would be another thousand case from there I would do a five-mile run and I lived in San Diego and that was here that big Hills there and I would one of the hills is a mile and a half down a mile and a half back up and when I got to the top I was sprint the distance of a house and then run the distance print run spent and then I would do ten quarter mile wind sprints and then I throw up and then I'd go do my show that you'll perform I'd perform that night and then every other day I would go rounds you know Murphy Douglas would have me a yo-yo - five rounds you know five rounds building up to it and sometimes two on one because you don't have time to to rest and that and but that's that was and I sustained that particular discipline for eight months and Deborah said I over trained you know went too long but my problem was asthma cuz you know being an asthmatic you know if I sometimes fear can trigger an asthma attack that's what happened on that green belt that I described yeah and you can't fight if you can't breathe and so I had to train my mind to not become afraid you know fear can paralyze you know we can be so worried about doing the wrong thing that we do nothing there's actually a English problem that says a man is 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 I I just started like I said putting myself in positions and conditions to help my mind overcome those effects and I did things I we just talked about the physical I did mental things like hey eating live cockroaches reliance hoppers the most absurd things rotten fish gots a sat in the Sun for a week - don't you saw the right it chopped 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 your person would throw up and some people that were watching it almost throw up one time one of when I do the guts they did throw up don't try this at home don't try this at home but is a closed track with a trained professional it was just to train my mind to be able to take whatever is being dished out and if I controlled my mind and body then I can make it and that triggers another thought real quick I'm gonna go back to the child Bonet syndrome Charles bonnet and how that can create strength one of the ways I use it the most and that we haven't even best is in training as what I can do tremendous numbers of reps well I took my fourth degree black belt test I was in my late for I was 47 to 48 I lifted two hundred twenty two thousand eight hundred eighty eight pounds used in 3190 reps and the 24 year old 220 pound black belt who trained alongside me could not do 50 percent of the number of reps or weight and that's because I don't get a slack t'k acid buildup because I would combine the mind with the body now you see wait people do this those you know they're trying to convince their body to do it your follower 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 transfer I'd use my V CB s I like had a bench press I would see a cable or I'm the bench press I'd see a cable it up across of it across to poised on the other end it's as guerrilla shape they were an Arnold Schwarzenegger 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 I would no longer feel the stress as my muscles continue to press and I have exercised forever I have a mental visually exercise I'll use for each exercise like the quadricep extension you know you're you're in exertion when you're straightening your legs right when so what I would see in front of me is a big giant rubber band when the brand has stretched down when the when the weights are down and then it would wouldn't it would the blubber 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 way it up so what I'm doing the exertion is when I'd feel at the least or another image like when I'm doing a hammer I got my on my back doing a tricep I would see a hammer falling okay and when the Hammers falling is the least amount of effort right because they haven't the way the hammer is going down but when I'm like this so I'd see the hammer falling and but yes that's when the tricep is being engaged and I taught my wife I when you had taught my wife this and and within a month times what she would do I say we'll look herself in the bear your reflection and when you get to exertion like exam I like a bet military compress yeah if there were point of exertion so yet you want to do we'd always do sets of 52 reps when you get to a 48 with then transfer that seeing that image of that reflection pulling those weights up and then and she got to the point where she increased her muscular endurance 30% in a month time and she was already in top shape for self and if I can give you an example of that if you if we were standing if you want to stand up but I would like I course now I'm saying it's almost 66 so I don't know how I used to have it as a demonstration that I would do where I would bend the arm or the person and that there's not others only one person's arm I was not able to bend into it doing this demonstration for 40 years and no one has ever been my arm but if you want to stand up I can I don't know if this is right so you could I'm not gonna try to pin your on because I might because I'm sort of I'll get on this side of me all right let's see you look at those muscles huh no I know it usually I put myself up against the back so I'm pinned now I'm gonna have you put your hand on I'm right here okay your other arm here yeah okay got on the risk that one foot rest and and your job just what you already gonna do it's just been this little wobbly right okay yeah okay go ahead well yeah isn't go come on come on it's not gonna have I'm not and I'm not doing any I'm not using any strength and I'll leave my hand yeah totally relax yeah I'll tell you how I did it okay this is what's again it's pretty mind and body together what I did is I envisioned my arm is a fire hose you know shooting out that fire holds 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 players weather what water water student you never been to fire hose so I get that image in my mind I'm just shooting that fire hose and and I've never had anyone ever been my arm and yet the without that until I'd show them they kids they learn how to do that then that kept in their arm but before they were that's just kind of a little side sight note but how I've used by CBS to create a lot of strength and I also used it in my training with the cards without training when I went to analyze moves and break them down and and what I would do I'm just trying to transition you into something else here randomly but what I would do and why I was able to put in so many hours I would analyze the move okay I want to I want a second deal a certain way so I'd analyze the mood okay okay I want this I want that I want no leaking and so I analyzed what I want to do and I'd practice it in slow motion till every exact lead element of the muscle memory was firmly embedded in my brain okay then I would turn it into a subconscious habit we all have habits forward tap you tap an right tapping our feet that's idle energy wasted it's like an engine of a car running going nowhere just idling that's it's still energy expelled right so what I did 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 take it and that turned into subconscious habit and that move I would then Saturn because it hundreds of times I do it well at times tens of thousands of times hundreds of thousands of times then maybe two or three years late all the time will go by golly I got it and then and then some of the things Vernon would say that's not possible to do and and in and so I would figure it out analyze it show it to him 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 of a second but that Vernon would describe to you the ideal of how something would be performed even though 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 further I had the privilege of being with Professor Vernon for 17 years in those first five to six 10 years like you said he would describe to me sit Richard this is the way it has it has to be done your hands have to be natural you don't want this deep grip when you're going to deal a 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 jet your your general person in the public hold different cards and so you don't want to create any unnatural suspicion by your actions and so he would tell me oh okay you have to be able to do with those fingers on the side and so okay fingers on the side and you don't want you don't want any of this action here so I practiced with my hand on the table without moving it and so I would take the pieces what he said and I faxed it it would actually told me he said he'd say feel my hands feel the position my hands around I would feel this hands okay god I got it okay okay I got it so I'd see the picture in my mind of what his hands were showing me but he never did it because it's an action I really couldn't see him the action because of my answer get in the way of him executing the app but I knew the action of what he was showing so in my mind I would see his hands visualize 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 you see me he'd go watch this function perfect touch it you didn't get all excited you have all the other card guys come over in their wife a perfect weather perfect weather varies well my critics at the time but we became a good friend same with Tony Giorgio 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 isn't that's why it might work is kind of as most but 99.9% of the gamblers garden out there will tell you it's it's unique and separate from the way any other person handles the cards and I want to type one one loose end with the black belt test just to flash forward because we covered a lot of it but 10 fresh fighters 10 rounds you end up with a broken arm but at some point seventh row 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 this experience of course there were there were some cameras but also there's a piece in wasn't the LA Times only time now why did you my understanding is you did not not like a p-series not like the headline why is that well because they used the word blind man earns black belt and at that time I was very stubborn and I was just stubborn and probably self-absorbed and I wanted my work to stand on its own and I wanted to earn it the way Terry Cook John Douglas and the other his top other black both fighters do that's why when they offered me an honorary black belt he says he said you put in your time you put in your lumps I said no I'm going to do it the way you did and then that's what I started the training I described early but took me 10 years and out of 13 years in three months and five days from when I started when I finally got it from beginning to super nuts and um but anyway um the fact that they had to put the word blind man earns black belt and to me it was like yeah I don't like the theme handicap makes good I want the thing okay I just made good because I did it and it didn't and to be perfectly honest with you I kept telling people I wanted to do it they way they did it and people 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 they weren't sight-impaired when they did it I was I never understood what they were saying because I'm so pay catted about I wanted I wanted to do it the way they did it but then when you flip it 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 hard time doing if I could have done it at all Oh probably next to impossible if not possibly yeah and I want to dig into the visualization because this 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 eidetic memory that you mentioned really seem to coalesce to give you some incredible abilities and whether that's the feats of strength or work with the cards I you mentioned earlier that the way you see things when you're scanning or planning the construction the design and construction of three-story 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 recipe Oh like that like you were saying I see my subconscious in external space so you know and it's just a constant stagnant situation of all these colors patterns just there until I want to bring them into play and it doesn't matter if it's day night if my eyes are open or closed I see the exact same thing with my eyes covered up in a vault I'll see these vivid bright colors when there's absolutely no way of light getting in mm-hmm that 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 hmm which I you know that that someone brought that to my attention and some questions that I was asked and and I thought but I guess that's kind of unusual but yeah I'm never like I said part of the dream is never that I'm Harvard citing press nor do I see any of the CBS the symptoms in any my dreams now if I wake up in the middle of night say and I had to take some Tylenol or something from some surgery I've had 24 surgeries from all my high impact living and medication when I wake up would turn everything into a metallic colors and usually a lot of times it's purple this is if you wake up in the nola night middle the night on after taking some kind of medication from some kind of an injury that I'm on medications turn it metallic and it turns it usually a purple which is not as not a pretty purple to me I don't like it you mentioned marine was one of your favorite colors and in row 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 I probably wasn't aware of favorite colors before right so much as I am now because I see them all the time and and the different shades depending on the time of year the particular day sometimes it's just really vivid blues and I just it's just beautiful sometimes when I'm out walking with my beautiful wife Kim and my by CBS will create a skyline okay in other words the things will be darker here and I feel like that's the skyline and then it'd be lighter shades to give the image of a you know sky okay and then and then I go in and I have to ask my wife this is still light out because it will stay there and sometimes it's late tonight and I can't get that the I can't get it or sometimes it does can bother me because I want that to go down because it's now nighttime so there are there are some times that it will be a bit of a distracting side what I have as a note to ask I didn't want to get any of the details beforehand but and know to ask you about your experience of wind ah now so fine I can see the wind blow whenever I'm walking down the street with my with Kim or whatever if there I will of course I automatically see the images of trees but they're more like clouds in there in there being green shapes and colors to replicate and give the image of trees okay but whenever the wind blows everything all my all my visualization things that I see we'll go with that wind they will gust if it gusts they'll move a little bit more if I do this everything just now just wet look it's like out my tires I have dives I they had do it everything just jerked over and went back straight they're just weird little things like when I go in and I'm in a pool my eyes are closed the whole time I know I don't need to need my eyes open when I'm swimming there I'm gonna worry about the chlorine and stuff right and so when I'm above the pool there there's a certain hue the level in other words a level of brightness of the color when I go under the water I actually see myself going underwater and the hue changes they it deepens like put on sunglasses are sunglasses off sim glasses on and even as I made that image my eyes are closed I just offset things what darker and lighter I can pretend that I'm opening in close I open and close my eyes it will the hue it's like pulling down a shade that has a sunblock on our Sun but because of sunglasses we need a best way to describe you is what the hue changes and then now if I just pretend that a miserly old clothes the whole time I'm pretending that opening and closing my eyes it'll do the same thing and I'm a relevance that had to anything but it's just these little gates you know this is just a conversation for your friends nobody nobody listening or watching and so I'm just following my own interest and I want to talk about the enjoyment of not relaxing that's more said with a smile but when we took a little break to have some water I you said to me relaxing is not relaxing and you talked about happy being told to relax or ask to relax is like being punished and put in the corner for misbehaving at school for you in that case given your obsessive compulsive dedication to training to card mechanics to movement how do you replenish what what activities do you find recharge your batteries and maybe you could just elaborate on to me relaxing is not relaxing okay yeah I'm going to bring up a friend of mine who's like her brother's name was Luke quorum mm-hmm he was the director of the film dealt that you mentioned and and I'll just say something quick about the film if it wasn't for Luke in particular part I'd say 80% Luke and then Bradley and Russell the producer and the writer but Luke was the one that just had the creativity if if I if they would've let if they would listen to me and they listened zero to me they did that I would have screwed up the film the brilliance of that film is I lit at the feet of the director Luke and he would tell me if he actually lived with me he had his own place in my house when at certain times Luke's room and I never have my may attempt I didn't know the cameras on or off and he would say well let's chill yell and you know which I found I was word for relaxing and chill I don't want to what is this a pill on and I said relaxing for me relaxing it's not fun relaxing it's like when I was a kid I was being punished and my parents as a pleasure 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 Jimmy relaxing is adventure and that I would tell people not 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 in every hurt and pain that you come across as 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 arrest anyone and then he entered that one no trouble he won and he climbed this mountain anyone that's the boy you have to have 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 am my livelihood we almost came to an end five years ago well multiple times like I said I've had 24 surgeries I had to recount them just last week going away my 23 22 23 or 24 it roy's I've had I have to steal knees from all the years kagan I took a shot here roundhouse kick here and there first I did surgery and finally had to be replaced and just you know millions of kicks just fine gentlemen I've had five hernia surgeries I've had I did a backflip off my front porch landing on my fifth disc of my bed I'm right back on the brick drove it out my bellybutton I've had three back surgeries and and then fortunately but finally and they and that's so complicated they just doctors it's just they have a hard time with Max and then I they have this thing called a neurostimulator Medtronic makes and I have that and that short-circuits the pain from the back to your brain amazing ever since that night my wife said give our life back we have we have this table available we have some cards would you like to like to show anything I do yeah you have a deck of cards you after yourself right I do shuffle them up all right we'll say this and how how amateur the shuffle convey here yeah usually I can barely shuffle two hands well then use one yes I just showed yeah okay all right we're good to go switch decks with me all right okay you know in poker you've heard of like what wild cards like deuces are wild baseball have multiple wild cards the other games I'll 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 mean I can put on my deck yes we're not atheria okay just cut the deck in half here tell me when you got it okay just to make it more red just say any random number three four or five seven anything you want six six one two three four five six what's that card clan time so the Queen's will be the wild card okay then you just shuffle these cards right and it now have you ever played poker for money yeah and let me ask this have you ever played in the casino or have you ever wondered I mean I play in a casino am I getting conned I have lost in a casino okay so that that thought has crossed your mind am i getting caught yeah now I'm gonna show you you just handed 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 they will people like to cascade the cards into them give a cut so I'm telling you what I'm doing as I do it I shuffle did everything look legit look legit and not a movie saw was so you're already in trouble now actually not a move I saw was was honest not a one I got a one now show you how fast I could uncut that deck what's that card that is the two clubs the two of clubs so they'll pass the deck to the right to be cut and now the deck is longer cut so to be still on top watch again I'll watch again I'm showing you how fast I can cut the deck the deck is no longer cut yeah that was about a half a second yeah now you've heard of Texas Hold'em I have him okay well would you let hand if hold them and then hold them they have what's called a cut card or a burn card therefore the card the deck on a face-up card now after the fact you gonna tell me keep everything off the table here give me a full table yeah all right after the fat you tell me how many people step up to my Hold'em table let's bake your number five or six because we don't have a lot of room 5 to 5 players 1 2 3 4 5 5 2 3 4 5 burn and we almost called the flop and what are those 3 cards you got the King of Hearts the 2 of hearts and the queen of clubs deuces are not well but we did something the Queens was your card and if that means there's a pair of kings on the table where there's a burn and a turn what's that card that's a overturn so right now we have three kings because the Queen is a wild card what's that card that's a client right now we have four kings a scared of our burn 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 that's a plan what's that that's a hint so in the poker you would have five of a kind five kings or you'd have a royal flush depending on how you wanted to play they have in other words you killed yes lauded them beat them with the big time okay now we shuffle that deck okay I'll do I'll show you how far I can push the envelope all right so I'll shuffle this one I think I think we got two cards I'm gonna start it up on that one okay that's your job make sure that one's all legitimate yep okay and then I'll switch with you there we go okay and you can make sure everything's legitimate at one yeah I will give the deck a cut and we'll play my favorite game seven card stud and this would take a couple minutes to unfold but it's interesting that we have a deck of cards shuffled by till now we would say with the same number of players what I said you choose four players or five you choose for where do you want to sit number one number two number three or number four I'll be number one number one oh shoot I'm getting ready I'm doing a card in slow motion to hand number one before I continue to take these deck this deck mix them up don't give me the whole deck back just pour any random part of that deck and put them in my hands just do something quickly just a couple of turns no more than a couple Bluff to get around just a staff so I'm gonna work with whatever you give me okay Tim just having me back on random stack of cards we're playing at dealing a card to plan and number two player number three and player number four your number one slow motion watched carefully there's your card and we go player two three four now we have what I call the door car which means the face-up cards what's that card Jack of smash 1 player 2 player 3 therefore you're number one what's that card ace of clubs two number three number four you're number one what's that card is of don't mix them up reach them up becomes more mix up the entire whatever you're the boss okay and just have any part of that deck you want so you do it everything you can to screw things up okay and you just fell okay that's like five cards less than the last time you gotta me okay we have player two player three player four and so far we have three cards face up yes sir and what's that card it's a queen of diamonds wild card what did it do it again mix them up have me any part of the deck you want so you shuffle e cutting you choose how you chose how many players you chose where you want to sit you having me any random part of the deck oh my gosh getting stingy down to six cards player two player three player four and we always called down-and-dirty I'm now dealing the card off the top to Tim's first position two three four put that with the rest of the stack okay now let's see what you have in your hand with them seven card stud hi sugar go that means high Spade in the hole splits the money so let's see what you have what's that card clean and dyes are clean a wild card so we'll put it over here and what's that ace of done that would be a pair of aces here the Queen's wild with that ace cloves now equals three aces what's that this is jack of spades act what's that that's a ten of Spades ten ten jack ace what's that that's the Queen of Spades another wild card so right now you have four to a tsa's and two queens right that's right so you right now input with you that would equal four aces and the best possible hand in wild card is five aces we're playing high Spade in the hole splits apart with that yes ace of aces pastes five aces 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 project you can honestly say that Turner doesn't play with a full bag yes I dealt you the perfect can in poker that's regrettable it's incredible house matter yeah yeah that's incredible amazing all right but that shows you how far I can push and that particular thing to be and I know this and I don't mean to sound boastful cuz 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 what do you think about to mine this and this and this and you write your parrot gosh nah not possible I can't be done yeah nice oh you said you said you can't do it because three reasons one your brain cameras move respond that fast your hands cannot be that sensitive and you would break rhythm with those who put those all cards back together from this deck okay he said that's not possible and I were at the Magic Castle and for 10 minutes i sat there but he was sitting if the bar and I was standing next to him and I was depressed for 10 minutes I said they're gone this is the ultimate this is the perfect way this is the and I thought it he said it can't be done then I'll said never remembered but I can't do it I said professor come watch my show and he came out of the shell after we go Roger what the hell were your daughter now I don't understand what the hell you were doing I said remember when you said you can't combine this in this that's what I'm doing and it goes back come in watch her watch - and everybody for the next 18 months every time I was there you'd have me sell for the cards how many pairs you want where do you once sit watch us watching the Oh at two years there you go understand it he knows exactly what I'm doing and exactly how I'm doing it yeah that's amazing I so I have these all the cards face in the same way there I I guess two decks worth of cards I don't know how they're split up fifty to fifty joules to say great you know who knows how many roughly roughly fifty to another I suppose wonderful so you now you just just because this is mentioned before we start recording you audit cards is that right what I'm that or you how was my turn analyze yeah us playing card company is the largest maker of cards in the United States mm-hm and they just merged with Carter Monday which is the biggest card maker they've been started making cards eighteen 1765 and us playing card companies and said eighty they've been around for for 150 years and bicycle is the most recognized packet cards in the world it has been for over 100 years and in 1998 1988 I got some cards they were so bad I told them these are not the cards you been making I can prove prove that you are subcontracting your paper out blah blah blah anyway they sent a rep I proved who I was and they said he was been proven right then in 1993 they started miss cutting their cards by turning the things over I said these are not the cards you've been making for a hundred years I can prove it and at that time they were getting flack from the casinos with a car the seals were not not happy with the cards there was something wrong with them and I'm the one that identified the problem and and that was the blade was going through the wrong side of the card which affected the integrity of the card in them the ability for it to properly be properly and so then they finally put me on retainer in the 1990s and they I helped them make the best card in the world and they do make the best cards in the world and and just give you an idea how far there a director of research and development would push me he would send me out okay usually it was tea dozen decks or like 20 decks but I'll make it real small so you guys that let us say six decks yeah so there's if there's two doesn't be there would be 12 pairs okay 12 pairs so we were small reduce our illustration to down a 6-bit six steps there's three pairs and one of the - 3 pairs index through 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 why say pairs each each pair was ran together that was a particular run of that deck okay okay and so they would they would say one of the decks they just changed one of the chemicals in the Cody this is probably though the most elaborate one that I did just one of the chemicals was changed that's all chemical not the whole process when the chemicals was changed in their coating and so not only did I have to say deck one in three or match two and formats and five and six or 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 coated Eric a secret code like q7 5 to 9 1 6 J which that was their key in Cincinnati to understand these two of the pair these two of the pair of these 2 the bear I did not have a key right you know but I just had these random numbers that I got put down in my report my son Jason would tell me well this one dad is j75 - this one is 6 7 j 4 and which meant absolutely nothing to me and i find out to c7 j 4 and they you would they were the matches so I'd have to impair them match them up and then analyze with a snap the embossing depth that caught the caliper why I call the right period and all these things and which one is a better card and help then they would take that information and fine tune their machines to help you make the cards that that that they make which are by far the finest card you can buy there are no one yes so I know we have just a little bit of time left and we're practically neighbors I'm very very close by I'm curious to know then this this this is sometimes a difficult question but I'll just ask one or two more questions if you could put a message or quote anything non-commercial on a billboard to get a message out to millions or billions of people is there anything that comes to mind that you might put on that billboard yeah in the unite and America we have opportunities success depends upon the use we make of those opportunities mmm that would be one the other word would be not going down not going down not going down another one would be consider every obstacle as I measure every obstacle challenge hurt pain in your life as part of the adventure of life that's what give light gives life spice you know we know and then circling back to when that was talking about the surgeries and how my career was almost at an end I was at Penn & Teller's theater I was gonna be on their show their fourth season and a third season and I was in the gym the real gym where else with my friend Doug Gorman and I said okay I paid $17 for my workout that's a ridiculous workout part and so I was I as soon as I got in there when those benches that you set up like this to like you're doing standing curls yo you sit new curls or you can recline it back for like trio triceps or lay it all the way back here on do sit-ups on there just double punch the decimal bench and it was propped like this at about 40 yeah at 45 degree and I couldn't that hold that that I couldn't get it to go down and I felt up it was butted up against the wall and so I took that bench and I moved it over like this and WHAM my thumb was here and it was a commercial-grade been shot the steel bars that when we run around here and the steel bars that that was the frame of the vents just and crushed my thumb what did I do yeah I know he's crazy and your people that are listening watching say yeah he's a little on the crazy side and oh okay don't let me get off-track on here but did you know I'm a sir I'm a certified oddball certified I'm certified my dad did see your card yeah explain you've heard of Ripley's Believe It or Not right yes in 1980 for us on the TV series replaceable you're not hosted by Jack Palance I'm also an exhibit the second largest Ripley's in the country and I'm in the 2015 issue of Ripley's Believe it or not book of I pop and oddities right supersede associate stated like I have a certified quantity so you might be an oddball Tim I'm sorry you're certified I'm a certified I guess is uh so this contraption can describe like them and I called Doug I said bring me a bucket of ice and don't ask any questions and I figure I save $17 for this workout I'm not gonna select price for three minutes worked out for three minutes ice 15 minutes worked out for serious face where I worked out oh my gosh my thumb was as big as my big toe I go I ran upstairs grab my cards and went oh my gosh I can't feel so I called the producers Lincoln and Lincoln and Andrew they were the executive producer so I said Linc um I have a little trouble um a bench crushed my thumb I think I could do the first and third part of what we were but I don't think I do the second get down here he says you're going to her emergency room they sent me to the emergency room and they got in there and the first thing they did is they poked a hole and they said a fountain of blood shot out I ended up having to go into surgery and you can and because that I thought this may be the end of my career and Luke and the boys were flying in to get some footage with then and teller for delt and they were in air when this happened so they landing and they're coming into 5 pennants film Penn & Teller and about you know whatever they were gonna ask them only to find out that I just got crushed and oh then 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 want to be I want fully conscious I've went through multiple surgeries and I'll just shuffle the cards with my other hand while you work on this one and that'll just that'll that'll be my anesthetic and so he thought I was nuts and you can watch it it's a and I said I want to film that tip so if this isn't in my career I wanted footage and so they said okay well you just put on sees the other side of the business he can film it and then you can go on your tumors crush the allene film feature and crush stealing thumb when is the short version ones long but long religious it's on YouTube crush stealing thumb was somebody you'd look it up but after once it's graphic because he he takes us believe takes a spoon and pops my thumb open like a hood of a car or then he takes it he cuts it open and he squeezed the button we're talking the whole time back and forth and I'm shuffling cards they they would go back for it shuffling in the thumb and and we're time all this and and I said man this is so cool and he goes why don't people want to do this he says they go schizoid he because she gets a phrenic when they see just says go through something like this and said I have to be totally unconscious before I did it I just had a hangnail rubriz this and doctor anyway but but I that that gets back to yeah I am a certified lot more so you see how your son popped open like the hood of the car and well we'll link to those videos and the show notes I teamed up blog so people be able to find all of those videos and what happened after that do you mean a Penn & Teller no yeah Lincoln Henry and you said you'll come back from our fourth season don't worry about it right now take care of your stomach it literally took to the day before my thumbnail came back because they didn't know if it was gonna take where I go and do a grad another one where I was gonna end up with no family at all unfortunately I grew out a new one and it was literally Friday before that my manicures finally got the last part of them were Wiggly Wagle looking thumbnail to be matched up and I went on I started the filming on the following Monday so it took almost that year to the day and and so I got on the show and had a blasters and I fooled them faster than anybody in the history of their show because you know they and it was really fun their night and Penn & Teller just amazing performers they are just tire arts animals and in Penn & Teller is so funny and people don't realize it and if you watch on the show and I didn't told this afterwards he was staring staring at what I'm doing in the in he's trying to say go bring down the trophy now and over the headpiece they don't mean that generally we want you to do his entire act and then and then beforehand they said Ritchie you can't tell us how you do this so we can make a judgement this is their judges Johnny Thompson and Michael close I said what you know Devon and I are the only ones that really knows their stuff we know that we got to make some judgment I said okay boys I showed them in slow motion what I was doing I showed and they killed my god it really is impossible and so then what Pena's over his head this is what I was told is don't stir it up they were supposed to times four seven six minute interview with Alison while they discussed how to do it then of course they headed down to one minute when it broadcasts and they go they said over the head but don't ask us we don't know Ali did it and so then Penn turns around and says we have nothing to say you fooled us and then but the cool part was I walked offstage with Pam and I hear this and this is exactly how I talk Richard FFF I said who's that it's me teller he said it was so wonderful to be so completely and thoroughly astonished I've never seen anything like that in my life they said let's get some selfies and then the really fun thing was at midnight I day I get a call they tell it they said tell it once enough we can come up get outside deck of cards from you I said this is backwards I'm supposed to ask enough for autographs from them and I said just pen what what do they so would you Ken would love it anyway so that was kind of a really cool thing and like I said they're extraordinary extraordinarily talented and extraordinary and I was so honored at that they like dealt and then they tell her I actually wrote one of the on the film posters we all know the blazes yeah very well yeah and 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 was what was he saying don't make the money everybody won't get the money now later though later though to any what did he say in 2001 I just finished my show at the castle and there's Tony and he and I battled each other for 20 years 25 years and they said Richard Tony's here to see you and there was a what's called the Vernon seats were Vernon had won Gordon that's where Tony was seed because Verde had passed away nine years ten years before and 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 Georgia and Tony and Giorgio and Turner Giorgio in turn they know they always have these showdowns like gunfighters and so I didn't want to have any part of it and I said now understand they for an hour they said they 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 at least half of my accomplishments to him being my antagonist and I thought and I thought okay and I said Tony I just want to thank you for all your years of encouragement you were hard on me you're a divisive at times but people respect you because you knew the real work and you could do the real work and because you pushed me hard you made me better and I wanted to thank you for that 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 out now for the next two and a half hours we're doing what everybody wants in after every thing you turn drives I don't get the money that'll get the money and then he actually wanted to he actually proposed he said we have the perfect gamm the perfect threesome he said I'll tell the people your high-stake gambler and but you can't see but you would love to play Hold'em I'll be the person to tell reads the cards to you he said there's not five people in the in the gaming world that understands your work he said you we have a third agent third part of the crew that you'll deal the good hands to and so from the guy who said never get the money actually propose let's put them together as a team and and hustling together and and then I actually have a handwritten letter five page handwritten letters one of my best treasures from Tony Giorgio and and then emails that say love Tony oh yeah is it so I'm went from won't get the money to just talking nasty and mean and times that the council you did have to be taken up taken out of the castle in ways he did wasn't pleasant to him to to become a very dear friend and I actually had the privilege of writing one for one of the magazine says obituary because I have thirty nine related year relationship with him from from fighting to to earning his respect and really quickly that came from my first director a man named Steve Terrell who was a TV and movie star back in the 50s and early 60s and he was I was the theater company called the Lambs players from 1972 to 78 and one of the things he would tell me is he would well on stage he had watched me and I'll be looking out the corner of my eye when we talked about that is that new forward vision so I'm talking to my character and I'm looking over here he said Richard you need to it looks odd for you looking off his 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 you've seen that actor will play the part of his that blind person you flipped the rules you're a blind potent person you played the part of an of a sighted person and and he said in a few he says he was watching me practicing before and after every scene he says you love cars if you become the best card man in the world you will earn the respect of your worst enemies and then that was the case with Tony Giorgio he was the guy who was an enemy he was my they were it was my nightmare every time I went to the castle if we went into each other to become it a very dear man and 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 get the money and this has been so fun we didn't even get into your hustling stories and this this entire prep has been an embarrassment of riches so I hope this isn't 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 anytime you want to visit or do something again I'm at your I might be my honor honor and privilege to hang out it 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 but or maybe maybe a bit of both and 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 Turner 52 the no defense to Richard Turner 52 calm on social and I'll link to all of these in the show notes as well youtube.com forward slash ace 52 that's a sa t 52 and then also youtube.com forward slash Richard Turner 52 will link to all of this for speaking your repped by APB speaking Vera American program bureau APB and 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 they always want to just be an entertainer but I have to say I I'm really blessed that I have the privilege of speaking and entertaining some of the most amazing companies in the on the planet and I can't wait to see what you do next I you are also of course featured in delt which has at least last I checked a 95 percent on Rotten Tomatoes and it is one of my favorite documentaries I've seen and certainly last five years it's it's just spectacular and I am greatly inspired by you slightly terrified of you and I look forward to to watching your further ongoing adventures and hope to hope to have a protein shake in the near future but thanks very much for coming really appreciate it was my pleasure Tim it was a pleasure being with you and I'm honored as well thank you sir and for everybody watching or listening we will have a lot to link to 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-dot-com forward-slash tim ferriss or just go to tim not blog and you'll find it there and for the show notes all the links just got a tuned up log forward slash podcast type in Richard Turner and bam lickety-split you'll have what you need and until next time be safe train hard practice perfectly if you're going to practice and thanks for listening thanks for watching you

Channel: Tim Ferriss

Views: 82,615

Rating: 4.9186883 out of 5

Keywords: tim ferriss, 4 hour workweek, 4 hour body, 4 hour chef, timothy ferriss, entrepreneur, author, writer, angel investor, ferriss, tim ferriss blog, timothy ferriss speaker, Tim Ferriss Podcast, richard turner, magician, card tricks, penn and teller

Id: JuDn9QoDjz0

Length: 118min 7sec (7087 seconds)

Published: Thu Feb 20 2020

Reddit Comments

[u/DanteWilkens]

How do I upvote this twice? Amazing.

[u/derekbond007]

Turner is the most inspiring and interesting man ever ,if you met him in the bar and he told you his story you wouldn't believe him, dealt was jaw dropping and as a card man myself I rate him up there with the absolute best ever ,then add that he was blind and you get a man super heroes would feel a little intimidated to be around .

[u/Mex5150]

No idea who Tim Ferriss is, but this is one of the best interviews of Richard Turner I've seen.

[u/IdanFarag]

That was fascinating and inspiring.

I need to keep him in mind whenever I'm feeling lazy

[u/rennstrecke]

Anyone have a guess how he can identify cards with his vision impairment? I’m perplexed.