Derren Brown: UNLOCK The Secret Power Of Your Mind! | E212

1. 0:00 – 1:57

   Intro

   1. SBSteven Bartlett0:00

      I've been asked by the FBI, I've been asked by the police to help.

   2. DBDerren Brown0:04

      What did the FBI or the police want help with?

   3. SBSteven Bartlett0:07

      Uh.

   4. DBDerren Brown0:08

      Ladies and gentlemen, the incredible Derren Brown. A psychological illusionist.

   5. SBSteven Bartlett0:13

      Doing extraordinary television and even better live shows. Derren is a national treasure. Welcome to the show. The story we tell ourselves is not what's real. Like, for example, I did a show called Miracle. The Lord has his work cut out tonight. And the second half was healing. A woman came up and she'd been paralyzed on one side of her body since she was four. In floods of tears because she could move her left arm for the first time. What you're seeing is the, is the psychological component of suffering, right? Like, nothing's happened, nothing's changed, but their relationship to their suffering, that's being made to change. It's not the things in life that cause your problems, it's the story that you tell yourself about them, it's the judgments that you make about them.

   6. DBDerren Brown0:50

      There's a lot of people that are trying to sell you on this bullshit that they can take your traumas or your, your insecurities to zero. I've never seen it happen.

   7. SBSteven Bartlett0:57

      We've completely obliterated the idea of just fortune in life. Sometimes life's throwing stuff back at us we have no control over and anxiety's still somehow the demon, but you know, without anxiety how do you know to change anything? You know, you can't do that without embracing anxiety to an extent.

   8. DBDerren Brown1:11

      Your work is predominantly based in psychology, right? So have you ever done anything and thought, "How the fuck did that happen?"

   9. SBSteven Bartlett1:17

      (laughs) Don't go home and start doing that. Two things come to mind.

   10. DBDerren Brown1:24

       Before this episode starts, I have a small favor to ask from you. Two months ago, 74% of people that watch this channel didn't subscribe. We're now down to 69%. My goal is 50%. So if you've ever liked any of the videos we've posted, if you like this channel, can you do me a quick favor and hit the subscribe button? It helps this channel more than you know, and the bigger the channel gets, as you've seen, the bigger the guests get. Thank you and enjoy this episode. I've spent the last

2. 1:57 – 13:27

   Early years

   1. DBDerren Brown1:57

      few days reading all about your childhood.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett1:59

      Oh.

   3. DBDerren Brown1:59

      Truly fascinating.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett2:00

      Thank you.

   5. DBDerren Brown2:01

      I actually, I've actually got a picture here of you, um ...

   6. SBSteven Bartlett2:06

      How strange that you have that picture. Yes, that's me with a, um, a parrot on my shoulder. Lovely that you have.

   7. DBDerren Brown2:11

      This little boy.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett2:12

      Yes.

   9. DBDerren Brown2:13

      What do I need to understand about, about him and the world he lived in and the way he saw the world to understand you?

   10. SBSteven Bartlett2:21

       What do you need to understand? Well, I was an only child till I was nine, uh, so I guess that's kind of a, that's a pretty formative thing, isn't it? Um, quite creative. Like always, always drawing and building things, Lego. Um, always been a bit of a people pleaser and maybe that, at that age, kind of, yeah, sort of happy. Didn't, didn't have a lot of friends. There wasn't like a, didn't have a big gang. I never really did. I've always gone through life just with sort of a, a small number of, of, of good friends. Uh, but I think that's what I... That feels like a happy, a happy time to think back on.

   11. DBDerren Brown2:59

       I remember sitting with Jimmy Carr and him telling me that, um, people often think of comedians as being like, they're depressed so they're trying to impress other people to get some kind of thrill for their own sort of self-gratification. But Jimmy said to me, he said, "You should actually ask which one of my parents w- was depressed that I was trying to impress to understand how I became a comedian."

   12. SBSteven Bartlett3:19

       Mm.

   13. DBDerren Brown3:19

       And I wonder in your, you know, you said that you're a bit of a people pleaser. You clearly have this huge affinity towards entertaining and getting the reaction back from people, the amazement.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett3:28

       Mm.

   15. DBDerren Brown3:28

       Where, where did that start? Do... Can you, have you pinpointed where that started in your childhood?

   16. SBSteven Bartlett3:33

       Yes, I think I could. So when I was at school, so my dad was a swimming teacher at school. And, uh, he... And I wasn't very sporty, so I kind of, um, it shielded me from being like, uh, bullied as a, as a non-sporty kid. But I didn't love school, mainly because of that. I f- I found a lot of the kids, the sporty kids quite intimidating and so on. So I kind of like... But Dad teaching there helped. And then when I got to... And I was, I was in with the wrong group, the, um, the sort of classical music loving group or the poof gang, as we were less charitably known. Um, didn't even like classical music, so it was (laughs) a pretty miserable group to be stuck with. Um, in sixth form, I remember everybody sort of seemed to grow up suddenly and become a lot more, uh, friendly. And so I kind of, uh, I sort of exploded in a way and just sort of like attention seeking. And I went from being very sort of quiet and a bit, a bit intimidated by these sort of, uh, kids to sort of, um, suddenly they seemed to sort of, you know, like me or at least, you know, they were fine. So I, I, I started doing impressions of teachers and I would draw caricatures of them and I was def- I became a kind of, really I would imagine, quite irritating, certainly to some of the teachers, um, attention seeker. So I think it all happened around then. Um, and then, uh, it just sort of then progressed into university. Most of my 20s was, um, probably a lot of it was around, you know, based around that. Uh, and it, it was quite a handy thing, you know. If you're gonna perform, it takes care of that need to just sort of, you know, just kind of im- impress. I think it was probably a, a good thing.

   17. DBDerren Brown5:20

       Were you picked on or teased or anything in school before that point?

   18. SBSteven Bartlett5:25

       No. As I go- I think because my dad taught there, it helped. But I was, I was definitely, you know, I was chosen last for the teams and, and things, hated, uh, sports and so on. And there were a couple of kids that were probably, I mean, generally fairly nasty anyway, but I certainly got, uh, a, a, a bit from them. But no, I think, I think I sort of did all right. I think I generally didn't enjoy school that much. And I felt like I was sort of, um, I said intimidated, but I don't, I don't really remember ever getting sort of... I never got beaten up or bullied or no one was making my life particularly miserable. I think it was just the general feeling of not quite fitting in.

   19. DBDerren Brown6:03

       And religion. I was-

   20. SBSteven Bartlett6:04

       (laughs)

   21. DBDerren Brown6:04

       ... incredibly religious when I was-

   22. SBSteven Bartlett6:06

       Were you?

   23. DBDerren Brown6:06

       Yeah.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett6:06

       Mm-hmm.

   25. DBDerren Brown6:06

       And then I lost it at about 18, became incredibly atheist.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett6:09

       Yeah.

   27. DBDerren Brown6:09

       And you, I, I read a similar sort of journey in your story. At s- at six or something you'd asked your parents if you could go to Bible reading-

   28. SBSteven Bartlett6:16

       That's right. Mrs. Whittaker, one of our teachers at school, was, uh, I really liked a lot and, um, she ran, it was called Crusader Class, but it was basically like a Sunday school thing. Um, and, uh, 'cause I was six and she asked me if I wanted to go to it and I just sort of presumed every- everybody did, I didn't know any different (laughs) , so I said to her, uh, I asked my parents if I could go and they said, "Yes, of course." So I did and then by the time I realized that, oh, no, no, this is actually like a, a, a thing that I now believe in, it was sort of, I was pretty much inculcated so it was, uh, hard to step out of it. But I did eventually. Yeah, at university, so many years later, I, uh, through doing hypnosis first and magic and they, they always give you quite a skeptical outlook on things because you just see how people fool themselves and, and, uh, so you sort of naturally start to view a lot of belief systems, I think, through those eyes, including your own. I don't know how it was for you, but I... Um, and also the very idea of doing hypnosis, um, I just remember that was, because I was a member of the Christian Union in my first year at university, I went to Bristol, and they were just totally up in arms. I had, I had, um, members of the, uh, uh, Christian Union at the back of one of my shows exorcizing me and casting out demons-

   29. DBDerren Brown7:39

       (laughs)

   30. SBSteven Bartlett7:39

       ... whilst I was hypnotizing people on stage. So again, all of that just sort of, uh, made me quite, it just, just helped with the sort of general skepticism and it took a little while to properly come out of it. In fact that, the Richard Dawkins book, The God Delusion, came out around the time that I had sort of mentally made that step but didn't quite maybe have the, sort of proper language for it. So that was a, that was a helpful book actually and I was sure it was for many people in terms of giving that lack of belief a kind of a structure.
3. 13:27 – 23:25

   Shame, being in control and coming out

   1. DBDerren Brown13:27

      um, I've always wondered if, if we're particularly taken by the applause, are we therefore also taken by the criticism? So people that end up, end up committing their lives to being, like, public entertainers and living for the response and the reaction that they, their work has, are those then also the people that are most susceptible to when, you know, the opposite of applause?

   2. SBSteven Bartlett13:55

      Uh, yeah, I, I, yes, I guess so. You're, you're, you're definitely putting yourself out there, aren't you? If you, you perform in any sort, you are kind of, you are, um, opening yourself up to both extremes of reactions. But it wasn't really about that for me. I, I, um, think it was about con- uh, control was a big part of it. And also as I sort of... Um, like, I didn't come out till I was actually sort of quite late, in my 30s. Um, and I think around the time that I was getting into the hypnosis, so that was, you know, sort of university time, really. Uh, and I think first of all it was, and this was all wasn't clear to me at the time, but with hindsight, that the control aspect of it was very, um, clear, uh, and actually-

   3. DBDerren Brown14:44

      Controlling what?

   4. SBSteven Bartlett14:44

      ... really ticked. Well, if you watch a hypnotist hypnotizing people, I mean, it's just a, the whole thing is a big exercise in, in control. And I think I've sort of... That was appealing to me, although I didn't know it in that... I didn't, it didn't strike me quite in that language at the time, but I think looking back, um, that was helpful. Um, and also I think if the, the old, um, outmoded cliche of the, the gay man in particular being, you know, a hairdresser or a interior designer and all, all of those sort of horrible old cliches, what they have in common, actors as well, is the, um, the notion of, uh, um, being able to create dazzling surfaces because they, they deflect people from the, the more difficult, if you're feeling shame about, you know, what's underneath.

   5. DBDerren Brown15:34

      Mm-hmm.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett15:34

      Um, and I think magic's very good for that as well. You know, you're, you're sort of creating this bubble around yourself, this sort of, this, um, you're literally hiding behind a trick and people will look at that trick and go, "Oh gosh, you're amazing. How do you do that? You're amazing." That's a very appealing thing. A lot of kids get into magic just because they're under-confident. Um, and a lot of people even going through magic into adults, they, they've learned to rely on that to impress people and haven't had to go back and just work through normal social skills that most people do. So it's, it's a very appealing thing. I think all of that was, all of that was helpful to me, as somebody that was not out and, you know, kind of working all that stuff out.

   7. DBDerren Brown16:16

      You used the word shame there. It reminded me of listening to your audiobook where you talk about those two kids beating you up in your sleeping bag. I can't remember the-

   8. SBSteven Bartlett16:25

      Oh, yeah, yeah, that's right.

   9. DBDerren Brown16:26

      ... the aftermath.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett16:26

       Yeah.

   11. DBDerren Brown16:26

       And one of the lines you said in that section of the book is that you were very good at, I think you said embodying shame, but I know that's not the exact word you used.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett16:35

       Mm-hmm.

   13. DBDerren Brown16:35

       But that you were very good at, like, and to... holding shame. You were full of shame, I think was the, the, um, the message.

   14. SBSteven Bartlett16:43

       Yeah, I, I can't, I can't remember exactly what I wrote, but, um, yeah, it kind of, it, it creeps up on you. I cert- I, I, I find now it, it's, um, yeah, I can ease... I'm, I'm prone to it. You know, if I feel I've, uh, upset my partner, I'll, it's, it's shame that I'll go to rather than defensiveness or, you know, I just-

   15. DBDerren Brown17:05

       Really?

   16. SBSteven Bartlett17:06

       Yeah, I just... I'll easily, I can easily get back to a feeling of like, "Oof, I've, you know, I've been bad. I've just sort of let this person down." And-

   17. DBDerren Brown17:16

       Is that... What, what does shame mean to you? Because I think I've been using the word a little bit without, um, a very focused definition. I've been saying that I felt a lot of shame because I was the only, like, Black kid in an all-white school and we were the poorest family and so that feeling of shame turned into, like, a motivation which made me want to become a happy, sexy millionaire.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett17:31

       Mm-hmm. Yeah. Hmm.

   19. DBDerren Brown17:32

       But what does shame mean to you in that context?

   20. SBSteven Bartlett17:35

       Well, I suppose if you distinguish it from embarrassment, embarrassment is sort of where you've sort of, you've let yourself down in front of, or you've, you've... It's, it's a feeling you're gonna get from other people. They're, they're important in that. It's how you've appeared before them, whereas I suppose shame is how you've appeared before yourse- yourself, that you've sort of let something down within yourself. It's that, isn't it? Um, uh, but I think the experience of it is just a sort of, um... It just becomes an easy resting place. Whatever it is, it might be for someone else, it could be-... anger or fury or whatever. If there's just a- a- an emotional through line that you've, that was a familiar place when you were young, and it's just, you just find yourself settling back into that. And I suppose part of getting older is recognizing those kind of things, aren't they? Recognizing, ah, that's, that is a, you know, a needless pattern. And as you said with your own experience with that, kind of, those things can be really helpful. They can provide a real impetus and a motivation to, um, you know, to do things you wouldn't have. I mean, like not, not being out, all that energy was going into creating this Mr. Magic kind of persona. And I, you know, although, and although it's easy to say, you know, "Oh, uh, you should always, always come out," and all the rest of it, and of course those things were important too, but I don't think I'd be d- I wouldn't be sitting here talking to you now, I don't think, if, if that had been an easy ride, you know. Um...

   21. DBDerren Brown19:03

       Shame being a- a- a familiar resting place, as you kinda described it, and you said that kind of starts in your childhood, I just wanna be... 'cause I wanna make sure that I'm clear on the context here.

   22. SBSteven Bartlett19:12

       Mm-hmm.

   23. DBDerren Brown19:13

       That that has a familiar sort of, um, history in your childhood because of the social dynamics of your childhood, because you felt like a bit different and a bit like a loner. Is that what you're saying?

   24. SBSteven Bartlett19:22

       (laughs)

   25. DBDerren Brown19:22

       Or is there other dynamics with parents where they, you-

   26. SBSteven Bartlett19:25

       Uh, no, I think it's specifically with sort of the- the gay thing, I think, I think, I think that's what it is. I think if you feel... And, uh, hopefully it's different now but it's just, you know, this is going back a bit. I'm 51 now so... But if, if you feel like those things are just embarrassing and awkward, and you're kind of... You know, it's not like you really get to... Well, you're finding it out in real time about yourself, aren't you? So there's just, uh, it becomes an uncomfortable center of everything that starts to affect so much of what happens on the surface. And there's a real experience, I think, if you're not out, which I've recognized in many friends as well, where there's a bit of, just a bit of a bubble around you 'cause you're sort of ha- you're having to maintain a kind of a, um, a sort of curated exterior and, and part of that then is then what's happening underneath is- is uncomfortable and difficult and feels shameful. Um, so I think that's it. I think that's where... I don't remember feeling that as a kid. As I said, a bit quiet and so on, but I don't remember feeling that as an experience. But it just sort of just kind of crept in, and the more, the more I sort of, um, uh, kind of was leaning into the magic persona thing, the more the, the more the outside becomes sort of, you know, the- the- the harder and more sort of, um, uh, opaque this sort of exterior presentation becomes. I think the... It goes hand-in-hand with a more shameful interior, until in the end you just sort of go, "Oh, fuck that," and just sort of let it all be fine.

   27. DBDerren Brown21:03

       Was- was there a point, and this might be a really naive question, as a straight guy, but was there a point where it became crystal clear to you that your, your sexual preference was different? Or was it s- slow sort of realizations and...

   28. SBSteven Bartlett21:15

       Yeah, it was ki- um, (sighs) it's sort of... 'Cause you can never really climb into anyone else's head-

   29. DBDerren Brown21:21

       Yeah, uh-huh.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett21:21

       ... and sort of understand what their experience is. It's- it's- it's sort of, um, it's often difficult to really know. And of course, I, at the time, I was also a proper Christian, um-
4. 23:25 – 37:50

   Self-hate, believes & insecurities

   1. DBDerren Brown23:25

      I think it was in The Telegraph, where you'd said that, um, or maybe the journalist was commentating, that, um, something as simple as mislaying your keys can trigger a whole new wave of self-hatred.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett23:38

      (laughs) God. That was me saying that, was it? Uh, yeah, that's just fury though, isn't it, when you can't find a sock or you can't find your keys or your pen. Um...

   3. DBDerren Brown23:48

      Self-hatred, I mean, is a strong, strong word.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett23:51

      Uh...

   5. DBDerren Brown23:52

      I think that people-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett23:52

      Maybe, yeah, maybe it does... Yeah. I probably would, yes, I would reflect it back on myself rather than being angry at my partner or anybody else who's probably lost it. That's what he'd do. He'd be angry that I- I must've put his keys somewhere because he can't find them. I would just be, yeah, beating myself up for why am I always losing stuff, why can't I remember where I put things. Yeah, I definitely would do that.

   7. DBDerren Brown24:12

      Interesting. I wouldn't. (laughs)

   8. SBSteven Bartlett24:15

      You wouldn't? No.

   9. DBDerren Brown24:15

      No, no, it wouldn't re- I don't think it would reflect on my, my own self-image-

   10. SBSteven Bartlett24:20

       Yeah.

   11. DBDerren Brown24:21

       ... if I lost the keys. Or even if it did, it wouldn't negatively reflect. I think that's just who I am.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett24:26

       Right. That's who I am, yeah.

   13. DBDerren Brown24:26

       I'm unorganized versus-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett24:28

       Yeah.

   15. DBDerren Brown24:28

       ... like, "Oh, I'm so unorganized. I hate, I hate that about myself."

   16. SBSteven Bartlett24:32

       Yeah, well, I, I don't know when I said that. I s- that was probably quite a while ago and, uh, I don't know if I'd necessarily be that hard on myself now. Plus, sometimes you exaggerate these things for rhetorical effect. Um...

   17. DBDerren Brown24:45

       Has anything changed? Like, on, at a really fundamental level-

   18. SBSteven Bartlett24:48

       Yeah.

   19. DBDerren Brown24:48

       ... I'm so curious about how, how, how good we are at actually changing some of these things 'cause we say it.

   20. SBSteven Bartlett24:54

       Yeah.

   21. DBDerren Brown24:55

       We talk about it. But as I've g- gotten older and older and as I've done more and more of these interviews, I tend to find that the, like, real fundamental stuff is never healed. It never goes away. And I actually think that's really good news for people-

   22. SBSteven Bartlett25:06

       Mm-hmm.

   23. DBDerren Brown25:06

       ... because there's a lot of people that are trying to sell you on this bullshit that they can-

   24. SBSteven Bartlett25:10

       Mm-hmm.

   25. DBDerren Brown25:10

       ... take your traumas or your, your insecurities to zero.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett25:13

       Yeah.

   27. DBDerren Brown25:14

       I've never seen it happen.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett25:15

       No, that's all wrong and even, even stoicism in a way is sort of, um, a little guilty of that. Um, even something that's talk about- talking about rolling with the punches of life is still kind of suggesting that, and if you get this right, you won't be disturbed. You know, you won't experience anxiety or that is all, that's a little bit off really. I think the na- the nature of life is that it is, it is difficult and, uh, not all the time, but a lot of the time things really go badly. They certainly don't go as you planned and, you know, that you actually is- you start to get older, you realize your plans probably have nothing to do with how things are, are turning out. But the illusion that they are is what propels you through the first half of life. Um, so, uh, actually, I think the project, the task, our task is, um, a certain amount of- is, uh, sort of personal development and in- integrating ourselves with the parts of us that we are uncomfortable with. So again, that's the project of relating to what's difficult within ourselves and then how we do that in life as well. E- uh, uh, h- how we relate to things that are difficult, uh, uh, and, and tricky in life 'cause the, the thing about it, although that experience can be very, um, isolating, those feelings of, you know, when life lets you down or you feel you've failed. They tend to be quite isolating experiences. Um, like shame, right? That's a very isolating thing. Whereas, actually, and weirdly this- I'm doing this show Showman at the moment and this is entirely what the show's about. Those isolating experiences, like, they're exactly the things that join us all up. That is the, that is the human experience. How, how do we deal with the difficulties of life? You know, when things are going badly and we feel like we've failed, that's, that's what we all have to find our way through. So the things that feel most isolating are the things that tend to connect us. Um, so I don't think it's about trying to bury them under sort of, you know, some sort of forced optimism and it isn't about reaching a nirvana of, of, um, a problem-free life. I think that's, uh, it's a really sort of terrible project 'cause you're gonna end up blaming yourself for, for failing. You weren't a good enough stoic or you weren't a good enough optimist or whatever. Um, always reminded me of the faith healers that I, um, spent a lot of time watching and when they do that thing of saying, "Throw away your pills and if your illness returns it's 'cause you didn't have enough faith." Like it's your fault. Uh, and that's no different from the, you know, the, The Secret, you know, the, um, the-

   29. DBDerren Brown27:49

       Oh, right.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett27:49

       ... Law of Attraction.
5. 37:50 – 49:25

   Journey into hypnosis & magic

   1. DBDerren Brown37:50

      that, um, sort of sparked your interest in hypnosis, right?

   2. SBSteven Bartlett37:53

      Mm. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   3. DBDerren Brown37:55

      You saw someone on campus doing-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett37:56

      Martin Taylor was doing a show. It was, it was in my fresher's week. And, uh-

   5. DBDerren Brown38:00

      Oh, wow. Wow.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett38:01

      That was amazing. And I, I left and walked back that night with a friend and said, "I'm gonna learn how to do this." And my friend Nick said, "Oh yeah, so am I." But I knew I meant it. I knew that... I'd never seen it before, never come across hypnosis. I obviously had heard of it, but, um, and it was a good show. Like it wasn't, you know, embarrassing people or making them look stupid. It was sort of just jaw dropping. Um-

   7. DBDerren Brown38:22

      How did you know that you meant it? Because I've had that feeling in my life before where something just connects.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett38:28

      Yeah. Well, I think it was the, again, those boxes were being ticked. Something about performing, something about control. Uh, I didn't really know it. It just felt like I want, I, I have to do that. It's the most amazing thing I've seen. And it was, uh, it was appealing in ways that just weren't really, um, in ways I hadn't really thought about. I hadn't thought about performing. I hadn't, uh... But yeah, I think, I think that's what's happening, isn't it? There's something, it's, it's resonating unconsciously. It's something that you kind of need. And yet it was absolutely known. There was no doubt. So I, I bought, borrowed, stole any books I could find on the subject. You could probably just learn on YouTube nowadays.

   9. DBDerren Brown39:08

      Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett39:08

       But it's probably a dodgy thing because you need to, you need to learn it the long way around so that if you run into problems or if someone's having a weird time when you're hypnotizing them, you, you can't be like fumbling around trying to Google what to do. You know, you need to have the skills there and the, the wherewithal to, to deal with it. So I, I definitely learned the long way around. Uh, yeah.

   11. DBDerren Brown39:33

       And then you became, I think from what I was reading, pretty obsessed-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett39:38

       Mm.

   13. DBDerren Brown39:38

       ... with maj- magic and hypnosis and-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett39:40

       Yeah.

   15. DBDerren Brown39:41

       ... to the point that you have a conversation with your parents and you tell them that you're gonna (laughs)

   16. SBSteven Bartlett39:44

       Yeah. I remember saying to my mom, I think, "I'm not gonna be a lawyer." I was studying, uh, law in German. I said, "I'm not gonna be a lawyer. I'm gonna be a, um, a magician." They said, "Oh, fine. That sounds great. Sounds much more fun." Which actually made me stop and think, "Okay, hang on. I'm probably being a bit (laughs) I'm probably being a bit rash." Um-

   17. DBDerren Brown39:58

       What did they say? So they were okay with it?

   18. SBSteven Bartlett40:02

       Totally. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, yeah. That's what she said. She said, "Oh, that sounds great. It sounds much more fun." It's nice, isn't it? Actually, I wrote them a letter at the end of my first year saying... Because I, I saw all these other law students really fretting about their exams because of what their parents were gonna think if they didn't pass, and that had never occurred to me as a thing that your parents would make you feel. So I, uh, wrote them a letter thanking them for, for that, just for, um, letting me always do what I wanted to do. The only thing they ever put any pressure on me to do is learn how to drive, and I don't drive.

   19. DBDerren Brown40:38

       (laughs)

   20. SBSteven Bartlett40:39

       (laughs)

   21. DBDerren Brown40:40

       You still don't drive?

   22. SBSteven Bartlett40:40

       I still don't drive.

   23. DBDerren Brown40:43

       It's, it's, it's quite a common story, I have to say, that, um, your obsession seemed to come from, or at least be driven by some kind of insecurity. As in, like, the reason why hypnosis or initially resonated so much was because it was giving you some... It felt like it might offer you something that you were looking for or didn't-

   24. SBSteven Bartlett41:05

       Yeah, yeah, yeah.

   25. DBDerren Brown41:05

       ... have in yourself. That's the story I hear all the time.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett41:07

       That's what obsessions are though, isn't it? Isn't that the nature of them? Aren't your own-

   27. DBDerren Brown41:09

       Yes. It just, the level of obsession I saw when, from that day when you discovered hypnosis-

   28. SBSteven Bartlett41:14

       Yeah.

   29. DBDerren Brown41:14

       ... like getting all the books, teaching yourself.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett41:16

       Yeah, yeah.
6. 49:25 – 1:00:59

   Is the supernatural real?

   1. DBDerren Brown49:25

      to take, you know... I've seen multiple documentaries you've done where you're proving that magic or the supernatural isn't real.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett49:33

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. DBDerren Brown49:33

      And again, that's super compelling because we would expect you to be leaning into that and persuading us of the supernatural.

   4. SBSteven Bartlett49:40

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DBDerren Brown49:40

      Whereas, some of the most compelling stuff I've watched you do, whether you're confronting like a psychic that's pretending to speak to the dead or remember that reading you did where the woman had pulled up outside in a Mercedes, in the Mini.

   6. SBSteven Bartlett49:51

      Oh, in a Mini, yeah.

   7. DBDerren Brown49:52

      Yeah. And you had, you basically... What was it? You, you, um, you bas- read her, not her future, you read into her life.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett50:00

      I think it was the psychic that I was challenging had mentioned, um-

   9. DBDerren Brown50:04

      The Mini. Yeah.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett50:04

       ... that she drove a little red Mini and she'd been really impressed by that. But actually, (laughs) I'd seen him pull up his car, uh, right parked next to her in the car park. Yeah, but actually, I think it's the opposite. I think the, um... There's a long tradition of magicians pulling apart psychics and charlatans. And I think it's because we end up with a knowledge of how those things work. Um, and it goes right back to Houdini and the seances and, you know, exposing the fraudulent mediums in the dark. You know, it's a long, a long... and probably before that. But there's a long history of it. Um, so I... The only thing about it is that you're, if you're just going, "No, this is fake," you're not being very entertaining. And by the nature of what those people do, it's more entertaining. So they've kind of won the game. So I've tried to avoid making... when I, when I have sort of, you know, attacked those areas, rather than just attack them and make it negative, I've always tried to recreate something and make it more interesting and, and better, while at the same time saying, "I'm not really doing this." So for example, there was a, in one of the shows I did, I had an audience on stage. This was in Infamous, which was a previous, uh, stage show. And I, um, was giving them mediumship readings, right? So I'd say, "Yes, come up if you've lost somebody, if there's somebody that you would, that you'd want to get in touch with if you went to see a medium." And a skeptical audience, kind of like me, right? 'Cause they're my audiences. So they'd come up and sit down, and I would start to give them these readings, and I would say, "And I'm getting a message from your Auntie Jill. Is that right? Do you have an Auntie Jill that passed away?" They, "Yes." "And she's saying, she's not saying anything, I'm just making this up, but she's saying that you've got... Oh, you've got a little dog called Bella that she really loves. Is that right?" "Yes." "And, um, and I'm lying to you, but she's..." And so I would, I would like pepper these, like, impossible information that I was giving with reminders that I was making it up. Um, and I just found that really, really sort of in- interesting and, and, um, theatrically it was really interesting, and much more interesting than saying, "These people are fake, and prove it. And if you can prove it, I'll give you a million dollars," or whatever.

   11. DBDerren Brown52:10

       Mm-hmm.

   12. SBSteven Bartlett52:10

       So I've, I've tried to find a more creative approach to that. Um-

   13. DBDerren Brown52:13

       Do some people think you are, you are supernatural in your powers?

   14. SBSteven Bartlett52:18

       Some... Well, I was gonna say, actually, after that, about a week into that show, I came out, there was a girl at stage door, said, um, "I wondered if you could put me..." Uh, I say girl. She was in her, you know, in her 20s. "I wondered if you could put me in touch with my grandmother who's passed on." And I said, "Oh, God, I'm so sorry. I hoped it was clear from the show that I can't really do it, that that stuff isn't real." And she said, "Oh, no, no, I know, I know you can't really do it and it's not real, but I just wondered if you could just put me in touch with her." Like, it was extraordinary, um, how we kind of can balance these things in our, in our heads. So yeah, I'd, I... I'm sure people believe all sorts of things about me. I think the, the way of, the way I look at it is a bell curve. So at one end of the bell curve, it's people that think it's all fake, it's all stooges, it's all set up. Um, and I never use stooges and that's not what it is. And at the other extreme, people saying I'm psychic and I won't admit to it, which is also not true. Um, and then there's this main swell in the middle where people sort of get it. Um, and that's really all you can, I think, take, uh, responsibility for, really. There's always gonna be people at the far edges that will have, uh, strange and extreme reactions. Um, and then, you know, my... I think there's a certain license on stage which is different from TV. If you're doing stuff down the barrel of a TV, if you're talking to people at home, there's a level of directness and honesty there. Whereas it feels like on stage, there's a kind of theatrical quotation marks around the whole thing, so I feel like I can do things on stage which I wouldn't do on TV. Um, so that changes it, too. It's quite an interesting line, sort of treading, treading that. I kind of, uh, in the very early shows, very early TV shows, it was very much like I'm, I am doing this for real, is what I said. These are, these are not tricks. Um, and then once the shows realized, once we realized there was gonna be some longevity and there were gonna be more shows, it was important to me just to bring it back to a place that was honest and kind of ambiguous as well, and to... And I've enjoyed that now. I like leaning into the ambigu- ambiguity of what I'm doing. Because again, it, it, it means that you can do more interesting stuff with it. The, you know, if there's a lesson in it about how we see the world, how the story we tell ourselves is not what's real, how we mistake that story for reality, you know, we mistake the limits of our own, um, field of vision for the, for the horizons of the world, you know. If we, if there's something in there to be said...... in something as childish as magic. If there's some- something worthwhile to be said, it's much easier to say that if you're not trying to make it about yourself.

   15. DBDerren Brown54:49

       Has anything ever stumped you in terms of the supernatural? Uh, you know, I was-

   16. SBSteven Bartlett54:55

       Mm-hmm.

   17. DBDerren Brown54:56

       Your work is predominantly based in psychology, right? So has there, have you ever done anything and thought, "How the fuck did that happen?"

   18. SBSteven Bartlett55:02

       (laughs) Uh, two things come to mind. One, I was in a restaurant in Bristol approaching a table, which is always excruciating, um, uh, if people don't, aren't interested and I'm walking up with a deck of cards and I sort of introduce myself and it's two businessmen and one of them says, "Oh, no. No, thank you." So I reached and I said, "Okay." And as I walked away the other one went, "But queen of hearts, 13 cards down." And I sort of laughed and walked away then went into a corner and counted the cards down and the thirteenth one down was the queen of hearts. No idea how he did that.

   19. DBDerren Brown55:32

       (laughs)

   20. SBSteven Bartlett55:32

       If you are listening, please get in touch. That's bugged me for 20 years. And the, um, the other thing was actually doing, I did a show called Miracle, which is, so this, this is also on Netflix. It was a, uh, previous, uh, stage show, uh, or few stage shows ago. And the second half was healing. It was like evangelical, uh, healing. People being slain in the spirit and, um, had no idea if it was gonna work because again, very skeptical audience. Like not, you know, if you've... I've been to these events with these big, big name healers and of course people are arriving expecting it to work and they've got a certain amount of, you know, uh, readiness for it, which obviously helps. And I didn't know if it was gonna work at all, but it did. And again, I'm sort of undercutting it. Like I'm, I'm doing it and I'm creating these healings, in inverted commas, for people in the audience. But at the same time I'm kind of undercutting it too. But, um, it was extraordinary. I mean, I remember in the first week a woman came up and she'd been paraly- She was probably in her 40s. She'd been paralyzed on one side of her body since she was four or something. In floods of tears 'cause she could move her left arm for the first time. Um, and night after night, things like that. Sometimes, as I imagine, just, you know, someone, people with a bad back that felt better, but sometimes really quite dramatic things too. And it was... Although I could explain it 'cause I knew what I was doing, it was, um... What, what, what you're seeing is the, is the psychological component of suffering, right? Like if you take an X-ray before and after, nothing's happened, nothing's changed. But that, how that person is living out their, um, affliction. How they live ou- Uh, their relationship to their suffering has, that's been made to change. So what you're seeing... It's just a mixture of two things that are going on there. There's a cert- There's adrenaline, which is a natural painkiller, so you make the, you make the whole experience full of adrenaline. Um, uh, you know, in the same way if a, you know, l- lion walks into this room and you'd previously stubbed your toe, you'd run away and you wouldn't feel the pain of your toe, right? Because there's a bigger threat. Um, so that's just adrenaline. That's fine. And then but this other thing that, which is maybe kickstarted by the experience of the adrenaline, that you, you've... This thing that you've lived out, like presumably this woman, her arm had been fine for many years but she hadn't... She just continued to live as if it wasn't. You know, and all the stuff that you build up around pain, you know, the, the way people respond to you, so you... There's a whole network of, um, social aspects to it, over-protecting something that doesn't need protecting anymore. You know, it's much more complicated than simply the organic cause of, of, um, of your pain. There's lots of other things that sustain it and can keep it going beyond really where it's useful. So there she was having this extraordinary experience she couldn't explain, um, when really nothing had happened beyond she was just, had been snapped out of something. That was, that was sort of amazing and kind of wonderful then I started to, you know, do the thing of going, "Oh, maybe I could do this. Maybe I could offer this as a show of like secular healing." It'll only work on some people and you're only dealing with relatively small percentages, um, and I did start to think that. And of course that's where you start to go mad.

   21. DBDerren Brown58:51

       (laughs)

   22. SBSteven Bartlett58:51

       That's when you start to think you're playing God and, and then of course people... 'Cause I, when you go to these events, the big name healers I've seen, Benny Hinn and others, um, what you, what you don't really see when you watch those things on TV is that there are, in some of these big venues, hospital beds that have been brought in. There are people with... You know, a kid with Down syndrome that I spoke to the mom and she, uh, she'd taken her son to so many shows following him around the country, um, and things that just, they're not gonna get, they're not gonna get healed by those kind of dynamics. Um, so that's an uglier sort of side of that-

   23. DBDerren Brown59:26

       Mm-hmm.

   24. SBSteven Bartlett59:26

       ... because people have become very dependent on it and are not gonna get any help. And then there's the lack of any sort of follow-up. You know, there's plenty of infrastructure in place if you want to donate but no infrastructure if you've been in any way adversely affected by it and you want help. Or if you've had a healing-

   25. DBDerren Brown59:43

       Mm-hmm.

   26. SBSteven Bartlett59:43

       ... and now you, you, you'll, don't know how to sustain that or what you're supposed to do other than being told to give more money. Um...

   27. DBDerren Brown59:48

       You know, you know when, um, people discovered, f- through your TV work, that you had this skill and talent.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett59:55

       Mm-hmm.

   29. DBDerren Brown59:56

       I imagine you got lots of approaches to use it for less ethical reasons. 'Cause I, I mean help me get the girlfriend back, help me close the deal or help me rob a bank.

   30. SBSteven Bartlett1:00:07

       (laughs)
7. 1:00:59 – 1:02:45

   Ads

   1. DBDerren Brown1:00:59

      I had a few words to say about one of my sponsors on this podcast. As the seasons have begun to change, so has my diet. And right now, I'm just gonna be completely honest with you, I'm starting to think a lot about slimming down a little bit, because over the last couple of, probably the last four or five months, my diet has been pretty bad, um, and it's started to show a little bit. Really over the last two months. I go to the gym about 80% of the time, so I track it with 10 of my friends in a WhatsApp group, in this tracker online, and I'm currently at 81%. Um, so 81% of the days I've done a workout in the last 150 days. Right? So, I'm going to the gym about six times a week. And so one of the things I'm doing now to reduce my calorie intake and trying to get back to being nutritionally complete in all I eat, is I'm having the Huel protein shake. Thank you, Huel, for making a product that I actually like. The salted caramel is my favorite. I've got the banana one here, which is the one my girlfriend likes, but for me, salted caramel is the one. (paper rustling) We are lucky enough to have Intel sponsoring this podcast, and in previous episodes, I've introduced the Intel Evo platform, the badge of approval for high-spec laptops that will enable you to be more productive on the go. All of their designs are tested to make sure they're extremely thin and making them super portable, and they also have a high-quality display and camera features. For example, this Samsung device that I'm using, for those of you that are watching on, on YouTube or Spotify, is super light, making it the perfect on-the-go device. Whether I'm working in a plane or I'm in the car or wherever I am on the go, with Intel Evo, you don't need to sacrifice. You get the performance you need, but in a stylish and lightweight design. So, now you know, all you need to do is to look for the Intel Evo badge to be assured of performance. And as always, to find out more, head to intel.co.uk/evo. (paper rustling) Your skill stack-

8. 1:02:45 – 1:10:22

   What made you successful?

   1. DBDerren Brown1:02:45

   2. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:45

      Yeah.

   3. DBDerren Brown1:02:45

      When I think about the... You know, because there's lots of people that might have st- um, studied hypnosis, or they might have studied magic, or sleight of hand, or whatever-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:52

      Mm-hmm.

   5. DBDerren Brown1:02:53

      ... but they didn't end up on the level you're on, at the table you're at-

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:02:58

      Mm-hmm.

   7. DBDerren Brown1:02:58

      ... on the shows you're on. When you think about why you got there, I understand the 10 years of the graft.

   8. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:04

      Yeah.

   9. DBDerren Brown1:03:04

      And I see that in a lot of people that sit here. I see it in Jimmy Carr.

   10. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:07

       Yeah.

   11. DBDerren Brown1:03:07

       Leaves university, goes and does all of these, like, shit gigs for 20 quid for years and years-

   12. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:11

       Yeah.

   13. DBDerren Brown1:03:11

       ... and years and years. I see it in Lewis Capaldi, the musician, who went and played in pubs in Scotland for years and years and years and years, and just absolutely-

   14. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:18

       Yeah.

   15. DBDerren Brown1:03:18

       ... loved it and wanted to stay there.

   16. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:20

       Yeah.

   17. DBDerren Brown1:03:20

       I see the tenure bit, which a lot of young kids don't appreciate because we all want it now, and we want it for the wrong reasons.

   18. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:25

       Mm-hmm.

   19. DBDerren Brown1:03:26

       But what else was it about you, the way... your delivery, your style, that you think, in hindsight, made you compelling?

   20. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:34

       Oh, that's a really difficult one to answer.

   21. DBDerren Brown1:03:35

       It's difficult, isn't it?

   22. SBSteven Bartlett1:03:35

       It's difficult. Even, even if I knew the answer, it'd be hard to say it. Um, I, I think... I don't think it's that... I think it's sort of... It's not quite that intentional. I think you've probably grafted and done those things, I can't speak for Jimmy and others, but probably just because you really enjoyed them in and of themselves, you probably weren't thinking, "If I do this, if I get ahead, I can secure this for myself." Prob- probably. And if that is the case, if you are just doing it because you love it, and that feels like, in and of itself, what you're doing, and there's no particular need for a plan beyond that, then you'll keep at it, and you'll get very, you'll get very good at it. If, if that's, if that feels like all you need in the moment anyway, why then, why, why wouldn't you, you know, love it and put your, all your passion into it and get very good at it? So that helped. Um, uh, and then when things did sort of take off a bit, my manager also had a similar, um, ethos of just sort of slow burn, slow burn. There was never any sense of me, you know, being thrown at a public or any sort of overnight success or anything like that. It was a very deliberate thing of just slowly kind of letting it get out there. And that, so that was helpful. Um, I think as I've... I had a, a good team around me. Um, it's not like a one, not really a one-man thing. There's always... Although I, I'd had my own experience for those 10 years of doing it on my own, once I got into the TV, there was like a little group of us, which I'm sure is fairly common. Um, and then I think, I think what does help is letting it grow up with me as I've, as I've got older. I've just let the thing develop with me. Like it's... I don't really know what job to... You know, you asked me before we started, like, how I'd refer to myself. I never really know. I mean, mentalist, I think technically is what I am, but I mean, I remember a couple of years ago, I had the book on happy- happiness come out, which is essentially a book of Greek philosophy, come out the same month, the same month there's a ghost train opening at Thorpe Park.

   23. DBDerren Brown1:05:33

       (laughs)

   24. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:33

       And I do remember thinking, "I don't know what, I don't know what that is. I don't know what job that is that allows for those two things." It certainly isn't mentalism.

   25. DBDerren Brown1:05:40

       (laughs)

   26. SBSteven Bartlett1:05:41

       Um, so, um, uh, so yeah, just allowing, allowing the thing to grow up with me. And in terms of like, you know, uh, occasionally, you know, people talk about the brand and so on. It's, it's, um, it's a very helpful thing, I think, just to let it... Let the thing just be you, and not particularly be driven by the limitations of what... Yeah, When I first started, I remember reading... I used to go on, um, magic discussion forums and so on to see what magicians were saying about me, and there was a lot of like, "Oh, this isn't even mentalism." Like, there's a certain type of magic called mentalism, and I wasn't quite doing that. I was doing stuff that wasn't ten-... And they would, they would see that as a real sort of negative. And I always thought, "That's... Why, that's interesting that, that, that would bother anybody." A: Who knows what the word even means? Who cares? And B: That that would... that I wasn't somehow sticking within that. Um, so, and that's another thing about playing on your own, isn't it? And, um, you, you... Or being... If you, if you feel like an outsider as a kid, I think as you get older, you start... you value that. That becomes like a bit of a superpower. You, you hang onto that feeling of, of, um-... being an outsider and you kind of use that, so that's always helped me and I've just followed my nose for what feels fun and interesting and worthwhile. And as I've got older, I've let those things grow with me and, um, I find a lot of life much more interesting than magic. Magic's quite a childish thing, really, so it means that the stuff I find m- more interesting about life, I can bring into m- magic, you know. I think if you've got, if you've got both feet in your craft or your art form or whatever, if... as in if the thing is- feels to you so huge and expansive and all that you know, you can't... you're- you're sort of a bit overwhelmed by it and you can't move it anywhere. Because if you've got one foot in that thing and your other foot in the rest of life, at least you've got some leverage then to take this thing that you do somewhere interesting. So, maybe that's helped as well.

   27. DBDerren Brown1:07:39

       I see that in your shows.

   28. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:40

       Mm-hmm.

   29. DBDerren Brown1:07:40

       I see how your other passions-

   30. SBSteven Bartlett1:07:41

       Mm-hmm.
9. 1:10:22 – 1:20:51

   Goal setting & adversity

   1. DBDerren Brown1:10:22

      about happiness, um, Happy! and A Little Happier, one of the things that surprises a lot of people is that you're not a fan of goal setting.

   2. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:30

      Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

   3. DBDerren Brown1:10:31

      And having spoken to you now, I can kind of under- understand-

   4. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:33

      Yeah.

   5. DBDerren Brown1:10:33

      ... 'cause you have a much more today, this week, do my best approach to life. But what- what's wrong with goal setting in your point of view?

   6. SBSteven Bartlett1:10:40

      I don't know if there's anything wrong with goal setting for short term goals. Those, that's obviously, you know, can be very useful. It's, it's the long term stuff. I think we just get a bit hung up on it as a way of, as a way of life. You know, a, a friend of mine, um, who's a bit of a... always been a workaholic, um, and, uh, he certainly by his own account when he was younger was made to feel that... kind of needed to achieve stuff in order to feel valued. You know, which obviously is what most workaholics will say. So he decided he was gonna build up a company and, and sell it and become a multimillionaire and that was sort of the goal. And then did spend... and all the time that I knew him, he was building up a company and, um, sold it relatively young and had a huge amount of money and then just didn't know what to do with his life. It was miserable. Um, and actually found himself going to a support group with a bunch of similar millionaires (laughs) that had all made the same mistake. And he'd sort of missed the fact that actually it was the, it was the building up of the company that was... is what gave him meaning in his life. That was, that was what was important. And it's that old thing, isn't it? Of, you know, the, you know, the arrival at the end of the journey is just... it might just be taking your coat off and putting your bag down. That might be all it is. It's not necessarily the destination, you know. It's the, you know, it's the old thing, isn't it? Of the journey being what was important. But that was certainly... he realized that. Um, and that really changed his life actually, realizing that what he thought was gonna be important wasn't important. Um, plus how do we know what's gonna make us happy? That so many years before, you know, we're so terrible at gauging that. Um, we lose flexibility depending how we set those goals, but we become too rigid in them. And it's like playing, it's like playing a game of chess. Schopenhauer talks about this. That was a really good analogy that it's like starting a game of chess deciding how you're gonna play and the strategy you're gonna use and your... how you're gonna maneuver from the start. There is this other thing playing, which is, you know, life, fortune, stuff that's gonna throw... get thrown back at you. So, how can, how can you decide those things?

Episode duration: 1:36:17