Joe Rogan Experience #1198 - Derren Brown

Derren Brown is an English mentalist and illusionist. He has a new special called "Sacrifice" streaming now on Netflix.

Joe RoganhostDerren Brownguest

Nov 9, 20182h 10mWatch on YouTube ↗

EVERY SPOKEN WORD

150 min read · 30,016 words

0:02 – 2:33
Wildfire evacuation vibes and LA’s fragile fire season
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Four, three, two, boom. What's up, man? How are you?
2. DBDerren Brown
  Hello.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Thanks for being here.
4. DBDerren Brown
  I'm pleased, uh... Well, I'm pleased, uh, to get here. It's a, kind of a strange day in this part of LA, isn't it?
5. JRJoe Rogan
  This is as strange as it ever gets.
6. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  The, the big concern in Los Angeles has always been, according to a firefighter that I talked to once, that the right wind catches a fire and it takes it all the way through Los Angeles down to the coast.
8. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  It's not quite that. It didn't go through Hollywood. It didn't go... They think one day it's gonna happen-
10. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and with the right wind, they're not gonna be able to stop it, but-
12. DBDerren Brown
  Jesus, yeah.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  This is pretty bad. This is about as bad as I've ever seen. It happened all in one day.
14. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah. It was extraordinary driving down the road to get here. Just these huge just p- (laughs) just huge, pillowy, the... I thought it was just, you know, mountains, and I thought it was a strange cloud formation, but it was just simply-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Smoke?
16. DBDerren Brown
  ... smoke, yeah. Terrifying.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, it looks like a giant gray mountain-
18. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  ... in the distance.
20. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  It's, it's insane how bad it's gotten. I've, I've had it happen, um, three... This is the third time I've been evacuated-
22. DBDerren Brown
  Wow.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  ... since I've moved here 20 plus years ago.
24. DBDerren Brown
  Wow.
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, it gets rough, but this is the roughest I've ever seen. Jamie and I were doing the podcast yesterday, and when it was over, I had like five text messages from friends that live in my neighborhood saying how bad it was. And then when we got home, the wind was just crazy and it just, it's just... It's humbling. You know, I mean, it's super unfortunate for all the, the people that are, uh, losing their homes and, and losing their, you know, losing their property. But the reality is, this is, um, it's nature. You know?
26. DBDerren Brown
  Mm-hmm.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  This is just something that you just can't avoid.
28. DBDerren Brown
  Mm-hmm.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  There's nothing you can do about it. It gets dry like this, and I don't know what started it. I hope it wasn't a cigarette.
30. DBDerren Brown
  Hmm.
2:33 – 4:52
Why Derren is in LA: Netflix promo, culture shock, and the city’s scale
1. JRJoe Rogan
  So what's up, man? What are you doing in town for?
2. DBDerren Brown
  Shoulders back, chest out.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. There you go.
4. DBDerren Brown
  Torben would be proud.
5. JRJoe Rogan
  There you go. (laughs)
6. DBDerren Brown
  I'm here... Yeah, I'm here doing, uh, I'm here for a week. I've been, uh, I've got a show on Netflix that's come out, so I'm just kind of generally here to, uh, talk about it, I guess, and, uh, seeing a couple of friends and it's been a really nice, really nice week.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, this is a good way to end it too, with a giant fire that's just saying-
8. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah, the giant fire.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  ... "Darren, get the fuck outta here."
10. DBDerren Brown
  (laughs)
11. JRJoe Rogan
  "Quickly. These people are crazy living here," with no water and it never rains.
12. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah. It'll be, it's very different back home. It'll be a, it'll... Yeah, it's, uh, it's, it's, it's amazing just at this time of year leaving England and coming to somewhere like... I mean, I'm sure, I'm sure you don't take it for granted, but you know, it's... It is amazing just for a-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  The weather? Yeah.
14. DBDerren Brown
  Just for a bit. Do you like, but do you like LA as a, like, as a place and a home and a, and a... Does it... I mean, you've got an amazing sort of setup here. Is it just a, is it a just a dream place to you? L.A.?
15. JRJoe Rogan
  It's, uh, it's a love-hate relationship-
16. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
17. JRJoe Rogan
  ... certainly.
18. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
19. JRJoe Rogan
  The, the, the real problem is the population is just so insane. There's more than 20 million people, plus who knows people, you know, how many... They, they really don't have no idea how many people have snuck in.
20. DBDerren Brown
  Mm-hmm.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  You know, it's, it's just a chaotic place. There's-
22. DBDerren Brown
  And no public transport. It just hit me the other day.
23. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
24. DBDerren Brown
  There's like, there's no, there were no trains. There's no infrastructure of, uh... So everyone's driving these huge-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
26. DBDerren Brown
  ... huge vehicles. Yeah.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Everyone has an Escalade or-
28. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
29. JRJoe Rogan
  ... a Tesla or something. Yeah, it's, uh, it's just a strange place. There's... The highways are massive, you know, you have five, six lanes on each side and they're jammed solid where nothing's moving either way. And if you can see it from... The really... When you realize how preposterous it is when you're flying into LAX and you see the 405 highway in the distance and it's all stopped for as long as you could see, miles one way and miles the other way, just complete parking lot.
30. DBDerren Brown
  Mm-hmm.
4:52 – 8:16
Private creativity: painting, street photography, and balancing public life
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, your Instagram is interesting, you know, it's, it's surprising.
2. DBDerren Brown
  I... Well, yeah, I mainly put... I paint and I do a lot of street photography, so those, those... I only got into Instagram recently and I've just been putting, putting that stuff on there, which I don't know how, uh, interesting it is generally to the world.
3. JRJoe Rogan
  It is interesting.
4. DBDerren Brown
  But it's a nice place to put that kind of stuff. I, I paint like these big portraits and they just end up sitting around my house. No one wants to buy it. No one wants to, you know, buy a giant picture of my mother, so they...
5. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
6. DBDerren Brown
  I don't really sell them, so they just sit around. So actually, yeah, putting them on, but at least putting them online.
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, there's your-
8. DBDerren Brown
  Oh, there you go. That's not my mother, just for clarity.
9. JRJoe Rogan
  Your stuff is really good.
10. DBDerren Brown
  Well, thank you. Well, these are old caricatures that I used to-
11. JRJoe Rogan
  The Tom Waits one is excellent. It's, uh, surprisingly good. You know, I mean, you think someone is really good at something like magic and you say, "Well, that's about as good as he's gonna get. It's not like he's gonna be that good at something else." But you are-
12. DBDerren Brown
  (laughs) Oh, yeah, you're literally flicking through my Instagram. It's great.
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. I mean, you're, you're a really good artist.
14. DBDerren Brown
  Thank you very much, uh-
15. JRJoe Rogan
  Have you done this your whole life?
16. DBDerren Brown
  Uh, not yet. Um, yeah, pretty much, like as a, as a kid I used to draw and, and paint a lot and, uh, always faces like I'm, you know, no, no good anything else. But, uh, faces has always been my thing. So I used to do like these kind of, you know, caricatures and now I paint more sort of-... straight pictures, I guess. But it's nice. If you do something that's kind of, you know, public, it's nice to do something that's private. And, uh-
17. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
18. DBDerren Brown
  ... it's that thing of something bigger than yourself to throw yourself into and to lose yourself in. And it's great, you know?
19. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
20. DBDerren Brown
  Days, weeks of, you know, just being in my studio is, is just, is lovely. It's a great thing.
21. JRJoe Rogan
  Do you, you find that stuff like that clears your mind for your other work?
22. DBDerren Brown
  I think it's, it's just the sheer contrast. You know, one of my favorite parts of the year is touring, and I, I get to do the shows in the evening, and then the days are free. And I'm like, I'm not in London, I'm in some other city, so no one c- (laughs) no one can, like, get me in for a meeting or anything. I just-
23. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
24. DBDerren Brown
  ... have the days free and I can write, or I had a book on happiness that I wrote, which I wrote while I was on tour. And it was just this amazing routine of just finding a coffee shop, spending the day writing. And then if that does get a bit, you know, a bit boring or a bit s- you know, sad or something, if it's not quite coming together, you then, you then get to go out and be this amazingly (laughs) charismatic, well-rehearsed version of yourself on stage, which is, you know, full of adrenaline and lovely. So that, that's an amazing routine. I think that's my favorite, favorite thing. So, yeah, the, the painting and all that. Photography's an interesting one 'cause you, you, you find yourself on the one hand kind of slightly... 'Cause I do street photography, so it's kind of, you know, out taking pictures of candid moments, I guess. So you're, you're a step out of it, but you're also very open and engaged, and, and that feels like a really prime state. That's a, a very kind of porous, lovely state to be in. And having been used to keeping my head down out in public, 'cause I, I realize I'm not known here at all, but in the UK I am a bit. So I, if I, if I was out in public, I generally kind of naturally kind of hunkered down-
25. JRJoe Rogan
  Tried to stay low-key.
26. DBDerren Brown
  ... yeah, hunkered down a bit. But now it's the opposite.
27. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
28. DBDerren Brown
  It's, uh, totally changed, uh, that relationship. So-
29. JRJoe Rogan
  That's interesting.
30. DBDerren Brown
  ... it's all good. Yeah, it's nice.
8:16 – 11:06
Shyness, insecurity, and the path from university hypnosis to stage work
1. JRJoe Rogan
  Were you always shy, or did you become more shy because of becoming really famous?
2. DBDerren Brown
  I was always ... Well, not always. I th- I, I think I grew quite, um, I was probably quite insecure as a kid. I was very charming and very, um, uh, quite bright and quite, like, socially, you know, that was, that was all good. But I think, like, inside, I was, um, I was very intimidated by the kind of sporty kids. You would have terrified me-
3. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
4. DBDerren Brown
  ... as a, as a, as a child. Um, and, uh, I-
5. JRJoe Rogan
  Athletic kids, like kids who played sports.
6. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah, just ... Yeah, yeah, just that exact, 'cause I really didn't fit in-
7. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
8. DBDerren Brown
  ... with any of that. Um, and so, like, when I first started ... I'm l- Like, I started my career as a hypnotist, and I, I saw this guy performing at university, and I, uh, I just thought, "I'm gonna, I'm gonna do that." It just... I, and I didn't realize at the time all these boxes that it was ticking, you know, performing, that sort of, you know, need for affirmation and, and, and love and center of attention, and also the control aspect of it, you know? The kind of, um, uh, yeah, the control aspect. And also, the kind of people, particularly the sort of guys that would respond well to hypnosis and come up on stage and, you know, uh, and respond well to it tended to be exactly the kind of guys (laughs) that would have really intimidated me before. So that was, like, at a, at an unconscious level, uh, and I hope I've grown out of that now m- m- mainly. But, uh, yeah, it ticked a lot of, it ticked a lot of boxes. So th- that, that was, that's how I started, and yeah, it was definitely driven by insecurity. 'Cause any s- any sort of magic, which sort of followed for me, on from the hypnosis, you're basically ... It is the quickest, most fraudulent route to impressing people. That's, you know-
9. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
10. DBDerren Brown
  ... the subtext is only, you know, "Look at me. Aren't I great?" Which is not that interesting after a, after a while. So I've tried to, you know, as I've, as I've grown up, I've tried to move it into a different area, and one that's a little more resonant than just showing off.
11. JRJoe Rogan
  That's fascinating that you started out doing a, a hypnosis show. Was it a comedy show? Like-
12. DBDerren Brown
  No, it was sort of, um ... I would mainly perform at, like, uh, colleges, and I'd do a demonstration and then have questions and after, uh, questions and answers afterwards. And I wasn't making people look stupid. It was an entertainment show, and I guess it was kind of, you know, funny. But it was, um, it was, uh, it's just a really interesting thing. And the-
13. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
14. DBDerren Brown
  ... trouble with doing it on stage is, of course, it gets mixed up with people just kind of playing along and stuff. So it, it, it's ... But if you take that out of it, it's just a really interesting area. And I've done this stuff for, you know, 20 years back home. And I'm not, I don't think of myself as a hypnotist. That was just kind of where I, where I started. But the, the, the suggestion-based techniques of that is something I've continued with and brought into different areas. And I still don't fully understand it, you know, now. It's, there's ... You can never quite climb in, you know, inside someone's head and know what they're experiencing. Like, I used to do, in
11:06 – 13:26
What hypnosis looks like from the inside: compliance, acting, and subjectivity
1. DBDerren Brown
  the, when I used to do these, like, stage hypnosis shows, the last thing I did was to ... I'd tell these people on stage that I was invisible, right? And I'd, I'd float something through the air, right, like this bottle I've got here. And, uh, it was normally something bigger, like a chair. And they'd be freaking out and, you know, running off stage and so on. But afterwards, when I'd have this kind of Q&A, I'd, um, I'd ask them, "Well, what was your, what was your actual experience? Like, like, the show's over now, be honest, what were you, what were you experiencing?" And you'd get some people that would say, "Well, yeah, you were obviously just floating that. You were just holding it, but I kind of felt like I had to play along." And then you'd get this interesting area in the middle of, of like, "Well, I kind of ... I, now when I think back, yes, of course it was you, but I, it was, and I sort of knew it was you, but I e- emotionally just completely, I could only experience it as a terrifying floating bottle," or whatever it was. So that's a bit like an actor, like, getting caught up in a role, I guess.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
3. DBDerren Brown
  Like, they know, they know they're on stage and it's a character, but nonetheless emotionally committed. And then the other extreme people that would not accept that it was me floating it, just they, "That must've been on a wire or something. There's no, there's no way that I can drop you back in the picture in my memory of that thing." So, how do you, you know, how do you, how do you judge what that experience is when there's ... And, and are those people that are saying-... know you were really invisible? Are they just saying that 'cause they wanna be, like, the best subjects in that-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
5. DBDerren Brown
  ... in that group? I mean-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
7. DBDerren Brown
  ... how do you, how do you tease it all apart? It's, it's-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  That is the, is that, that must be a real issue, right? The people that just wanna please you-
9. DBDerren Brown
  Mm-hmm.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and are playing along. How, can you tell when, if you were hypnotizing people?
11. DBDerren Brown
  I can tell, yeah, I can tell. But I, the way I use it now is kind of, I use it quite sort of subtly in the show. I don't, like, overtly, you know, hypnotize people. Um, so that means, well, it can mean one of two things. It either means it, it, it just, I'm not interested in people playing along because I'm not just trying to create the effect of someone hypnotized. They need to genuinely be responding to this thing in order for the next bit to work, uh, in which case I have to filter out anybody playing along. But occasionally, occasionally it doesn't matter. Like, a lot of the time, like, I'll get people up on stage and I'll shake their hand, and there are the, there's a rapid handshake induction that the guy just, you know, just falls to the floor. Um, and there are times that that matters and they have to be, that has to be a really honest response. Other times I can tell they're sort of half into it and they're just a bit intimidated, and, but for the 2,000 people looking, that might look, it kinda might look like the same thing, and then it won't matter so much.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  So what, what, exactly, how does that, exactly does that work?
13:26 – 31:02
Pattern interrupts and ‘handshake inductions’—plus a bizarre self-defense story
1. DBDerren Brown
  The handshake induction?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
3. DBDerren Brown
  Okay. Well, it's, it's a, uh, (laughs) I take no responsibility for explaining this to your tens of millions of listeners and viewers. Um, but, uh, it's, it's, you're, you're interrupting a, an automatic process, right? This is the, this is the key to it. It was made popular by, um, made popular by, I guess, Richard Bandler, who's the guy behind NLP and so on. Um, I don't know if he kind of created this thing, but perhaps, uh, perhaps Erickson did before him. I don't know. Anyway. You, you, you take an automatic process and you interrupt it in the middle. So like, when you're shaking hands with somebody, that's a, such a familiar process that when you start, you're not thinking, okay, I'm gonna grip this person's hand now, and I'm gonna move my hand up and down with them a few times. Then I'll take my hand away. You just kind of do it automatically. Um, and there's something about interrupting that that leaves people f- really flummoxed and, and bewildered, 'cause they're really, uh, really caught off guard. Like, if you imagine somebody comes up to you in the street and says, "It's not half past seven," you know, your reaction isn't to go, "Yeah, yeah, I know. It's, uh, 20 past nine." Your reaction is t- is to sort of, you, you think like you've missed something, like you're trying to make sense of it. It's a strange, uh, kind of puts you on the back foot. And at that point, if you t- if you've got somebody who's fairly suggestible and people coming up on stage, it's such an odd moment for them anyway, they're naturally very suggestible, that a clear instruction to sleep or whatever you wanna give them tends to be taken very deeply. And very often then you'll see I'll shake hands and I'll, I'll break the pattern of the handshake, so I'll, I'll often take their hand and lift it up to their face and say, "Sleep," and show them their hand like that. Or, or-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  And they just sleep?
5. DBDerren Brown
  And, well, it's not sleep, but it's-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs) But they-
7. DBDerren Brown
  ... a kind of, um, y- it looks like... I mean, they, they'll do anything from eyes closed, head drops down, to just drop like a, like a dead weight on the floor. You know what I found that's most interesting actually, was, um, like, applying this in slightly more useful everyday situations, was as a sort of, um, like a self-defense technique. I was walking, uh, between... So I was like, must have been like 20 or something, and I was at a magic convention. And I was walking from one hotel to another, and I'm dressed in, like, a three-piece velvet suit.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
9. DBDerren Brown
  I was this skinny British lad. I might, might as well have, you know, "Punch me in the throat" tattooed across my face. (laughs)
10. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
11. DBDerren Brown
  And this guy comes up and he's like a, he's drunk, uh, it's about 3:00 in the morning, drunk, aggressive, he's with his girlfriend, clearly looking for a fight. And, uh, he sort of, he comes up to me and he says, "What, what are you, what are you fucking looking at? What are you looking at?" And because I'd spoken about this, how to deal with this sort of thing, but I'd never found myself in this situation, I kind of had it all mentally rehearsed. So I said to him, I said, "The wall outside my house isn't four foot high." And-
12. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
13. DBDerren Brown
  ... I guess there's an equivalent to this with a sort of adrenaline dump, I think it's called in, uh, in martial arts. But there's a, it, it just, like, he's got all this adrenaline, and then a thing like that from me, which is just out of context, like, it makes sense. I'm not, like, talking gibberish.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
15. DBDerren Brown
  It makes sense, but it's just out of context.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
17. DBDerren Brown
  So now suddenly he's thinking, "I've, what? I've missed something." So now he, he was sort of, he went, "What?" And I said, and then his, his girlfriend walked off, and I said, "The, the wall outside my house isn't four foot high. I spent some time in Spain. The walls there were very high, but if you look at the ones here, they're, they're tiny, they're nothing." (laughs) And then he just sort of broke down. He sort of went, "Wah." And, uh-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Started crying?
19. DBDerren Brown
  Well, you know, he, no, it wasn't quite crying, but it was just, it was like all the adrenaline and everything just, just flooded out of him. And he sat down-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
21. DBDerren Brown
  ... and I end up sitting next to him on the, uh, like, you know, on the roadside, um, asking him, you know, so what... I was, the plan was I was gonna try and stick his feet to the floor, and I had this whole plan, but he just kind of collapsed and sat down. So I, so I just-
22. JRJoe Rogan
  You were gonna stick his feet to the floor with hypnosis? (laughs)
23. DBDerren Brown
  I was gonna stick his feet... Yeah, that was the, 'cause I knew it'd be like this highly suggestible state. And like either way, the, the moment of aggression-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh.
25. DBDerren Brown
  ... had passed. But I ended up, ended up weirdly sitting with him asking him what had happened that evening, and his girlfriend had, I think she'd bottled somebody or something horrible had happened.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, Jesus.
27. DBDerren Brown
  So he'd got out with all this aggression. But it's a, it's a good one, isn't it? If you just have like, um, it could be just a song lyric or just some, some weird kind of thing that you can just go into in, in those situations that... I mean, if someone's running at you with a knife, it's a bit difficult, but the, you just, you, you're kind of strangely taking control of a situation. Otherwise, what are you gonna do? If they say, "What are you looking at?" Y- you can't, y- there's no way you can answer that without being on the back foot.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
29. DBDerren Brown
  So it just kind of nicely kind of inverts the situation and puts them on the back foot, which anyway, it worked. It was, uh, it was kind of fun.
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Uh, isn't there, like, a process required to hypnotize someone? You could just do it that way and saying it, just talk them through some sort of a program that makes them think their foot is stuck to the floor?
31:02 – 33:35
Placebo, faith healing, and the mind’s role in pain and recovery
1. DBDerren Brown
  There's no mechanism, no. It's... What, what I found works really well is, I've done a few shows on placebo, is... For me, I find the key is, the person gets to absolve any responsibility for the change themselves. So they... I've done a couple things where... This new show I have on, uh, Netflix now called Sacrifice, a guy thinks he's got a microchip implanted in him, which is doing all the work. Uh, another show I've done is, was, uh, placebo injections they were getting, so they feel the i- the drug is doing the work. But the key is, they don't have to... They, they, they don't think, they don't think they're doing any work at all. "This thing is taking care of that for me." And that's really powerful, 'cause suddenly it's, it's, um, that thing of, "I, I don't have to do... I don't..." Th- the person thinking, "I don't have to make this happen myself, there is no onus on me, I don't have to do any- anything. This, this magic formula is somehow doing it," is hugely powerful. Um, so that, yeah, that's a, that's a, that's a... I think that's a big, a big part of it, which is why a lot of the... when we, when we, when we did the placebo program, we created this whole, like, um, fake, uh, pharmacological building. We had a building, we just, you know, k- filled it out with actors and equipment and stuff to just create this environment that was gonna be convincing before the injections were even given, and these were on people that had various, like, fears, or problems, or things that we're just gonna just investigate and see how well the placebo worked. And, uh... Yeah, it did. But that, that, that's a helpful thing, ha- feeling there's just something in you making it, making it happen.
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah, almost like a subconscious optimism or something like that.
3. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  I've, I've wondered if that sort of mindset that allows you to experience a beneficial result of a placebo, if that, s- in some way, transfers over to everyday life events, if having this, uh, maybe unfounded sense of optimism or this, uh, biz- bizarrely positive outlook, or this, uh, almost undue confidence-
5. DBDerren Brown
  Mm.
6. JRJoe Rogan
  ... actually can have some sort of a beneficial, tangible result in the real world, in terms of actual events that take place. Whether it's because of the way you interact with other human beings-
7. DBDerren Brown
  Mm.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  ... that they are being influenced by your positive attiti- attitude and energy, and then confidence and enthusiasm, and then therefore things go smoother-
9. DBDerren Brown
  Mm.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  ... or whether it's really some sort of a factor of the way you interchange with reality itself, and that your attitude actually has an effect on events.
33:35 – 39:55
Strategic pessimism vs. ‘The Secret’: goal myths, luck, and toxic self-blame
1. DBDerren Brown
  I think it gets vastly overrated. I'm a big advocate of strategic pessimism. I think the, the problem with that kind of, um... the problem with unwavering self-belief- (laughs)
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
3. DBDerren Brown
  ... is that it just doesn't, that doesn't quite map into how life works, right?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. DBDerren Brown
  I think, like, I think the Greeks had this down. So if you imagine a kind of, a graph. So you've got your, your... is it the Y-axis going up here? Of your aims and things you want to achieve. And then your X-axis is just what they used to call fortune, stuff that life-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
7. DBDerren Brown
  ... throws back at you that you have no control over, no control at all. So, we are told a lot nowadays that you just, you know, set your goals, believe in yourself, visualize this. And as if we can crank up the sort of, the line that we're living-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
9. DBDerren Brown
  ... right up in line with our goals and our, you know, aims and so on. The reality is, there's always life, like, pushing back.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
11. DBDerren Brown
  So actually what we lead is an X equals Y line. That, that's a kind of more realistic, I think, appraisal of what our life is. So, actually kind of, sort of, I think, making peace with that, which allows for all the optimism you want, but also makes peace with the fact that at some point, that might let you down, you know?
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
13. DBDerren Brown
  You can spend your life climbing a ladder and then realize you had it against the wrong wall, uh, to quote-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
15. DBDerren Brown
  ... uh, Joseph, Joseph Campbell, you know. You can-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
17. DBDerren Brown
  ... set goals that, they may just be the wrong goals, and, or you may achieve them, and then, like, you know, now what? I've got a, you know, a friend who, um, uh, spent a long time building up a company and selling it, and he'd been driven to do this all his life 'cause he f- like, needed to sort of achieve to feel like, you know, that he was, uh, um, kind of really worth something. That was it, he was all about achievement, and then he, he, you know, sells the company and achieves that dream. And then he didn't know what to do with his life, 'cause that, that urge was still there, and now it had nowhere to go, and actually he ended up in therapy because of it. It was such a strangely, uh, counterintuitive thing. So, I, you know, I'm the, all about changing the world for the better, but I think we have to make mental space for the fact that, um... You know, like when, when, uh, Freud created psychoanalysis, he wasn't trying to make people happy. He called it, he called it restoring, uh, restoring natural unhappiness. Like-
18. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
19. DBDerren Brown
  ... you know, life is basically gonna be unhappy sometimes, and he was trying to get rid of unnatural unhappiness as he saw it, like a sort of neurotic unhappiness, and restore a kind of, an easy relationship to life and fortune. So to me, that's, that's the case. I'm always a bit, I'm always a bit skeptical of the kind of, uh, just unwavering positivity.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. No, I agree with you. I mean, I think that unwavering positivity is usually delusional.
21. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  Like, but, a certain amount of positivity.
23. DBDerren Brown
  A scho- so yeah, of course, a certain amount, I mean-
24. JRJoe Rogan
  And a certain amount of-
25. DBDerren Brown
  The, the danger is-
26. JRJoe Rogan
  ... the way you're attituded.
27. DBDerren Brown
  ... it's like, it's like the, it's like the faith healers, right? So the-
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
29. DBDerren Brown
  ... faith healing thing of, you go away, you don't take your pills...... and if this condition returns, which it's going to, it's your own fault because you didn't have enough faith, right?
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
39:55 – 47:24
‘The Push’: social compliance, engineered pressure, and ethical debriefing
1. DBDerren Brown
  sense of how isolated we are, and we're not. We're clearly social, uh, creatures. I did a, there's a show on Netflix called The Push, uh, which I did, which was to see whether, if you create this environment, um, of social compliance, so it's a big party, right? There's one guy in it who doesn't know th- this is being filmed, that he's part of a TV show. Everybody else is an actor. And the plot was to see, could you get him to murder somebody?
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Pshew.
3. DBDerren Brown
  To push someone off the roof to their death, as far as he's concerned. Obviously, it doesn't... No one really dies, right?
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
5. DBDerren Brown
  And it just starts with... He kind of gets roped into helping out at this event, and it's a big high-stakes event. Everyone's in, um, you know, tuxedos, but he didn't get the memo for the dress code, so he already comes in feeling a bit like, "Oh, fuck." And then he gets, he gets roped into helping out, and, like, the first thing he's asked to do is to label, um, meat-filled sausage roll snacks as vegetarian, right? Because they, the vegetarian ones haven't been delivered. So it's just like a little kind of foot in the door thing, and then it just builds and it builds, and, uh, it gets to this point when he's on a roof, having been through this really, like, d- dark, extraordinary, and sort of hilarious and massively anxiety-inducing journey. It's a lot of emotions you go through when you watch it. Um, and then faced with this massive pressure to, to, to kill this guy, and I don't wanna, I don't wanna spoil the ending 'cause it's a stonker, but, um, this is like... It's, that's what it's all about, you know, how your, uh, how your sense of... It's like the story you tell yourself about who you are, it just isn't, isn't, isn't real. Can I talk about The News Show? Can I talk about ne- uh, the, um, Sacrifice? 'Cause that's like, it's as-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  You talk about anything you want, but can I ask you one question about this?
7. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  What ki-... I mean, do you feel a certain sense of moral confusion when you're trying to talk someone into potentially... And you realize that if this wasn't a show-
9. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  ... if, if a similar or ma- maybe even more powerful pressures were in play-
11. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  ... and this guy was suggestible and he found himself in very unusual circumstances where it seemed like a good idea to kill this person-
13. DBDerren Brown
  Mm.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  ... like, you're, you're introducing this thought and this, this scenario into a person's mind that perhaps could go cradle to the grave and never have that.
15. DBDerren Brown
  It's, it's kind of the opposite, but it actually, uh, it's just hard to talk about that without really giving away the ending, but the... What it does is m- actually mentally rehearse somebody. What, what this guy took away from it is the knowledge that-... if he was ever in a situation again where there was anything like that nature of compliance, that he now has the tools to just, like, stand up to it, because you, you need that kind of-
16. JRJoe Rogan
  Right. I see.
17. DBDerren Brown
  ... emotional rehearsal. And likewise, for viewers, hopefully, watching it too.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
19. DBDerren Brown
  That's kind of the idea. You're all- we're all emotionally rehearsing it with him. Um, and unless you've been trained in stuff and you know it like that, you- you- you need, like, a- an emotional experience of it to know-
20. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
21. DBDerren Brown
  ... when that thing happens, to just have the resources to stand up, yeah.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  To understand that you can be manipulated.
23. DBDerren Brown
  So these are very... Although it does- I realize it doesn't sound like it, and that show, The Push is... I mean, it's kind of like the darkest of all the shows, but they are- they are there for a- like a good reason. There's like a- a- there's a reason for doing it. Everybody that comes away is always like, you know, "That's- that's- that is- that was a great thing to do. Best thing I've ever done." You know, these kind... Even though the journeys themselves look- do look very dark.
24. JRJoe Rogan
  Well, he sounds like- the guy who had a positive outlook on it sounds like a person who... s- can learn from their mistakes.
25. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  And- but there's some people that when confronted with some new situation, like, "Wow, I really was gonna push that guy off the roof," like, "This is me." Like, "I didn't think that was me."
27. DBDerren Brown
  Mm-hmm.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  "Now I know. Now I know that I'm capable of doing that. If I get manipulated to the point, like, wow." And then, they have a lot of, like, real confusion and- and- and perhaps a lack of faith in themselves and their ability to make decisions.
29. DBDerren Brown
  I mean, that's- that's kind of- that's kind of my job to make sure that the- the- the framing and the-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  That they don't...
47:24 – 59:22
‘Sacrifice’: turning ideology into compassion through a 10-month Truman-style build
1. DBDerren Brown
  I think so. Well, that's- that also- also what's happened with this guy, Phil. So in the- in the- in this new show, which is also the first like brand new thing I've done for- for Netflix, there's a couple of other shows, but they-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  And what is it called?
3. DBDerren Brown
  It's called Sacrifice.
4. JRJoe Rogan
  Sacrifice.
5. DBDerren Brown
  So the plot is... I take this guy, Phil, who is an- an American guy, I think his father's- uh, his father's British, got a few sort of British links, but he's an American guy living in, um, Florida, Cocoa Beach, Florida. Big, uh, right-wing guy, strong views against immigration, um. And I, using these covert psychological techniques, try and get him to the point where he will willingly lay down his life and take a bullet for an illegal Mexican immigrant, or at least someone he believes is, you know, it's an actor-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm-hmm.
7. DBDerren Brown
  ... because it's- the whole thing is-
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
9. DBDerren Brown
  The whole thing with actors. So, um, so he went through this journey, which is not a- it's not a political story at all. I mean, obviously, it kind of- it resonates, but it was ultimately a story about compassion and- and, uh, and humanity and this ultimately very human moment that he- that he found himself in. Um-And, you know, the guy's, like... Uh, it made a huge difference to him. You know, it's- it's, uh... So this is... I- I don't... I kind of don't wanna give away exactly how it turns out.
10. JRJoe Rogan
  How long did the process take?
11. DBDerren Brown
  It was about 10 months.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  10 months.
13. DBDerren Brown
  For him, for him, it was like a maybe three, four months. It was like the beginning block of this year. But there's like two levels to making these shows. You've gotta write the ide- you know, the, the... sort of the plot of the show and find that-
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
15. DBDerren Brown
  ... and make that happen for him. But you've also gotta create this... The whole thing has... It's like this kind of Truman Show. It all ha-... You're creating a fiction for somebody that has to be completely convincing. That's a whole other level of, of kind of work. Plus, you know, you gotta make sure this guy's robust enough to go through something like that.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
17. DBDerren Brown
  So there's a whole vetting procedure that has to happen without him realizing what it's all about.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah. That's a great way of putting it, robust enough-
19. DBDerren Brown
  Robust enough.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  ... psychologically, right?
21. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah, yeah.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  That is a crazy amount of preparation and production work.
23. DBDerren Brown
  It's hu-... Yeah. It's, it's, it's huge. In the apocalypse show, there was like one moment when we had to just make this guy's... 'Cause there was the idea there was electrical interference with the meteors. Just had to make his TV pop off in his room, like just sort of, you know, cut out. And to do that, there were two guys out in his garden shed, um, waiting, who had to be there all day 'cause they couldn't come in and out the garden 'cause he might see them, pulling a cable at this moment to make the TV go. But then they couldn't leave because he might see them, so they had to spend the night in this garden shed, right?
24. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
25. DBDerren Brown
  And this is like after three months of not having a day off as well. So that's like a nothing moment that no one will ever remember from the show, but it... yeah, a huge amount of, um, huge amount of work.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  (laughs)
27. DBDerren Brown
  I always get people saying, "Oh, it's all fake. You haven't really done it." And I think it's just that (laughs) ... It's that no one believes you'd actually go to all that trouble.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow. For the paranoid... Like, if you, if you did that to a, a, a naturally paranoid person or a person with a, a touch of schizophrenia, oh my God.
29. DBDerren Brown
  Which is why they have to be vetted-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Oh, yeah.
59:22 – 1:13:26
Conditioning and triggers: microchip placebo, jingles, empathy cues, and agency
1. DBDerren Brown
  That's... Thank you. Well, that's, that's, that's the hope. Um, the way that I do it, the way that I change him is through conditioning. So I, um... This is a technique I've used a lot over the years of you kind of take the emotional state you want the person to have at the end, uh, break it down into components, and then attach each one of those to a, to a trigger. So this guy, Phil, uh, in Sacrifice, he's using, um, like, an app which he thinks is sort of talking to this, um... Uh, the microchip he has in him because he thinks he's... He thinks we've imp-... A- and we really do, like, cut him open and-
2. JRJoe Rogan
  Really?
3. DBDerren Brown
  ... seemingly. Yeah. We just don't... You know, it's a placebo. We don't really put it in. But he now thinks he's-
4. JRJoe Rogan
  But you actually do cut him?
5. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah, we cut him and, yeah, yeah-
6. JRJoe Rogan
  Stitch him back up again and the whole-
7. DBDerren Brown
  We stitch him back up, yeah.
8. JRJoe Rogan
  Wow.
9. DBDerren Brown
  Um, I don't think he needs... No, I don't think he needs stitches for it. It's a kinda, kind of a small cut, but it's, uh, scalpel going in, horrible. Um, so he thinks he's using this app which is kind of, um, helping motivate him, but what it's doing, it's atta-... It's giving him this sound, like this little jingle, that gets attached to all those feelings of motivation. So that means that when he finds himself in this kind of final scene where he has this choice to step in and save a life, that we can have the same jingle on the radio that plays and... You know, it's like that thing of you hear a song when you're breaking up with someone and it's a horrible period of your life, and then five years later you hear the same song, and it just-
10. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
11. DBDerren Brown
  ... brings it all back.
12. JRJoe Rogan
  Yeah.
13. DBDerren Brown
  You know? It's that, that process.... um, or obviously, like, you know, advertising is the big example of that.
14. JRJoe Rogan
  Isn't that the premise behind something like The Manchurian Candidate that there's some way they can (snaps fingers) snap and then you go back to this state of mind where you followed
15. DBDerren Brown
  Yeah. Well, that... Yeah. That's more kind of, I guess, overtly hypnotic.
16. JRJoe Rogan
  ... them, I think.
17. DBDerren Brown
  That's like a post-hypnotic suggestion. This isn't. This is more gentle because he needed to make the decision himself.
18. JRJoe Rogan
  Right.
19. DBDerren Brown
  The idea was not that he'd be some kind of hypnotized robot, um, if that would even work anyway.
20. JRJoe Rogan
  And-
21. DBDerren Brown
  You know, this is, this is, this is about a creating... A trigger f- There's feelings of empathy are important. A lot of the show is about empathy, and a lot of the show is about the desire to act. And then, he's, he finds himself in this situation which is extremely... He has no idea at this point it's anything to do with... Like, the filming's finished. That all happened in England as far as he's concerned. He's gone back home, had time to forget all about it, and then ends up stranded in this situation where it all happens. Um, and then I trigger these things off, so I'm giving him this kind of psychological nudge and then it's, you know, what, what will happen? Will he, will he, will he rise up and take it? Like, like the guy landing the plane is kind of like, what, what, what... Ultimately, you know, it's that guy's decision. And it's also, I think... It's, it's a story about stepping out of the kind of the, you know, the, the... I guess the show resonates politically, but it's not a political show. The, the, there's like... There are political narratives we get constrained by and we forget that actually it's the dialogue between the sides that, you know, where humanity emerges and where we find truth. So this is also I guess a story about a guy coming out of his particular sociopolitical narrative and just finding something that ultimately is just a, a, a human, you know, a human quality, kindness, compassion. And these are not political qualities, although they end up getting politicized, but, you know, they're not. They're not.
22. JRJoe Rogan
  I think that a lot of people are gonna watch this and want that to happen to them. Like, "I need some sort of a transformative prank played on me to, to..."
23. DBDerren Brown
  (laughs)
24. JRJoe Rogan
  'Cause I think people do... I mean, we, we do get caught in ruts, right? We do get stuck on momentum. We g- we get stuck following the same patterns over and over again. It's very difficult to change your life.
25. DBDerren Brown
  This is... This is it. This is it. Well, b- the thing that makes us so great at evolving our ability to adapt is the same thing that just... It, um, ties us down, so like all through life. So from an early age, like, we emerge in this world and we're very quickly given messages about what our relationship with that sh- to that world is. "This is what people are like. This is what they'll want from you. You are not powerful. The world is powerful." You know? And that, that is, it's gonna be skewed. Jung said that, you know, the... I love this, that the greatest burden a child has to bear is the unlived life of its parents. Such a great thing.
26. JRJoe Rogan
  Mm.
27. DBDerren Brown
  So your starting point is this skewed story.
28. JRJoe Rogan
  Yes.
29. DBDerren Brown
  And then you just... You go through life looking for things that just fit and recreate tho- those patterns because they feel so comfortable. You know, your... What do you learn about love from your parents, you start to bring to your adult relationships and project all that stuff on, uh, on your partner. If you think about it, you know, the, the... If you've had a nice loving upbringing, you are getting a ridiculously skewed version of what love means. Like, we know as adults how difficult it is raising kids, but we never saw that as kids. We never saw our parents going off and screaming at each other in the next room once we'd gone to bed. We just have this sort of impossibly, uh... Hopefully, you know, if we've had a, had a happy one, we get this impossible, um, template of what love is and should be, and then we just dump that on our poor adult partners, which nobody can live up to. So our ability to adapt, to internalize stories about who we are and then, like, mistake that for reality, is just, uh, is just what makes living just difficult and complex. And, uh-
30. JRJoe Rogan
  Also, the narratives that come through fiction, narratives from films and books and even songs.