S023 Jonathan Pritchard the Million Dollar Mindreader

Dex Randall (00:00:09) - Hi, everyone. My name is Dex Randall and this is the Burnout to Leadership podcast, where I teach professional men to recover from burnout and get back to passion and reward at work. Hello, my friends. This is Dex. And today I'm delighted to welcome our special guest, Jonathan Pritchard. He is a mentalist, and my sense is he's a showman who is currently dubbed the Million Dollar Mind reader for his psychology based sales negotiation and soft skills training for Fortune 500 clients. And he's written some books such as Think Like a Mind Reader. Haven't read it yet, but I'd like to. I can't wait to pick his brain today. Or for him to pick mine, whichever happens first. So welcome today, Jonathan.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:00:55) - Hey. Hey. Glad to be here. Thanks for having me on.

Dex Randall (00:00:58) - My pleasure. How are you going?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:01:00) - Well, all all systems running great and I've had a busy couple of weeks and now I get to have some time to catch up. So it's it's kind of that life where it's really busy then really quiet, then really busy, then really quiet.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:01:15) - So it's just kind of like the tide going in, tide coming out.

Dex Randall (00:01:19) - Okay, well, let's hope we caught you while the tide's still at least up a little bit. Yeah, we're winding down right after this.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:01:27) - Yeah. Yeah. Then I'll travel more here pretty soon. But I like the lull between.

Dex Randall (00:01:35) - Yeah, me too. I know what you're saying. I think you probably have a very big and a very busy life, so let's get straight to it, shall we?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:01:42) - You got it.

Dex Randall (00:01:43) - Of course. The first question I have to ask you is to tell us a little bit about how you started in this, the kind of showman side of it. How did you become this professional mind reader? What pulled you into that?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:01:56) - Weirdly, it was the only context that had room for everything I was interested in. I'm naturally very introverted. I don't get excited by being around a lot of people. It's actually just it's a lot of work to be around a lot of people, and that's why I get paid for it.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:02:15) - So it's not like I have to be in front of people. It was more this was the most interesting thing I've ever found in my life, and it's just stayed that way. So I started doing magic tricks with my family and then over the years do tricks at school, and then I get to be known as the guy who does magic tricks. And then I go off to college where I specialize in kind of the mind reading angles. And that's where I met my mentor, James Randi, and then worked with him over the next 13 years, helping manage a $1 million challenge to anybody who claims to be genuinely psychic. So I handled applications for that challenge and designed testing protocol for it. And as I say in my shows, I saw every way that people tried to scam their way to the money. And I thought, I can do these scams better than they can. And then that's the show that I perform, right? So it's it's been a kind of a weird, weird path. But when I was 13, I was juggling fire.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:03:24) - When I was 15, I learned how to hammer nails that my nose when I was 18, I was eating fire. So I just grew up around really interesting people and wanted to learn every single weird skill I could possibly learn.

Dex Randall (00:03:41) - Wow, that's quite the story. I really hope you're not going to teach any of us to hammer nails up our nose. Don't try this at home, kids. Right.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:03:48) - Well, if you were going to try it, you would want me to teach you, because I'll show you the right way to do it. Because if you do it wrong, you give yourself a lobotomy. So you you can really only do it wrong once.

Dex Randall (00:04:01) - One day I did an SAS training course where they were teaching self-defense in extreme extremely perilous situations. And one of the things they said was you can just jam somebody up their nose there and it jams the bone straight into their brain. I'm like, Oh, I'm in the wrong place. I don't need to know this.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:04:19) - Right, right.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:04:20) - Well, that's that's if you do it wrong, if you if you go straight up your nose, that's what happens. But there's a lot of nasal cavity behind your nostrils. So the the nail should go straight back. So there's a lot of room until it hits where your nasal cavity kind of turns down into your windpipe and that's where you feel it when when it stops going in. That's because it's hit the part that starts turning down. Really strange sensation, but you get used to it.

Dex Randall (00:04:54) - I really hope for that never to happen to my nose. Thank you very much. You're welcome to it. Bet you still do it. Yeah.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:05:00) - Job. Job security.

Dex Randall (00:05:02) - Yeah.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:05:04) - Yeah. Oh, I do.

Dex Randall (00:05:05) - I do. Great thing to pick.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:05:07) - You know, I. I do keep up with it because, you know, you never know when that's going to be handy.

Dex Randall (00:05:16) - That's one way of thinking. I don't think it's ever going to be my aspiration. But anyhow, so. So you kind of got into this through magic tricks and then that's evolved into you doing stage performances about magic and mentalism.

Dex Randall (00:05:30) - And you mentioned being psychic. Are you yourself psychic?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:05:33) - Nope, nope. Sure. Sure am not. And even if. Which I don't think there is. Even if there were a thing called being psychic, it sure doesn't seem like it's a thing that you can turn off or on when you get on stage. So I'm. I'm being paid to deliver a result or an experience or a message in a dependable way. So even if it were real, which I haven't seen any evidence that would make me believe so even then, it wouldn't be a useful skill in the way that communication skills, applied psychology, showman, showmanship and all those elements are rock solid, dependable.

Dex Randall (00:06:21) - Yeah. And I'm going to be really interested to talk to you about that in a minute, but I myself am able to perceive things that I don't know about.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:06:31) - Yeah. For me, the.

Dex Randall (00:06:32) - I've been trained in that skill. Right on.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:06:36) - Yep. For me, the. The fun parts of it are that. The rep replication crisis of a lot of psychology angle and then a lot of the folks who applied for the challenge.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:06:55) - The challenge itself was set up for people who seemed to be knowingly lying to the audience about what they're able to do and then taking money and not being able to deliver the goods. Right. So the thinking behind the challenge was, okay, well, if you can do it, you get $1 million and this is the way to hold their feet to the fire to be a legit challenge, it needs to be open to everybody. So then it was open to anybody and everybody who had half an idea that they might be able to do something. And and that was kind of a bummer.

Dex Randall (00:07:36) - Yeah, I can imagine the dynamic of that. It wouldn't be my ideal place to try and do it on a stage, but there you go.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:07:43) - Right, right. Yeah, it is. It is a weird dynamic, that's for sure.

Dex Randall (00:07:46) - Yeah. Okay. So. How does it work? Mentalism. Tell us a little bit.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:07:55) - The explanation for any magic trick you've ever seen it will ever see is that the magician or mentalist creates a context for the audience to make logical assumptions that are later shown to not be true.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:08:12) - That's it. That's that's all of it. So it's understanding the power of context and providing the correct information, but maybe not true information, but the correct information for the logical assumption to be what you need it to be, so that when you reveal the reality of the situation, they're way over somewhere else. And the distance away from reality is the potential they have to be amazed. So on stage, that's a good thing. When you've told people, I'm a performer, we're not at church right now. I'm not trying to start a cult. This is all for show. Inside that context, that's a lot of fun. But if you're in a sales context or if you're in a marketing context and your audience understand something that is very far away from the truth, well then that's not a good surprise. That's usually called lying or disappointment or any number of of not good things.

Dex Randall (00:09:18) - Yeah. And I think we're going to come back and revisit that. I think it's quite an interesting way of describing it that they're they're essentially focusing on the wrong thing.

Dex Randall (00:09:27) - So you've fed them some information, which is a diversion. And then you produce the rabbit out of the hat and said, Here's the rabbit.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:09:34) - Right, Right. And there's a there's a weird wrinkle to that, which is a lot of people talk about misdirection of I need you to look over here so you don't look over there. And it's kind of like a distraction technique. Right. So the weirder part is to create moments where the audience wants to look where you want them to look. So how do you make that the most interesting thing in the room instead of the details that would give away the whole game? So it's a choreography of attention that goes into understanding how and why people pay attention to what they pay attention to. Then how do I create moments that are more interesting than the answers?

Dex Randall (00:10:26) - Wow. That is really an excellent way of describing a choreography of attention. Imagine it's an extremely skillful process.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:10:37) - I tend to think so because you have to define what success looks like. It's it's design, right? It's it's the original user experience design motif.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:10:51) - Because the magician you as the magician, you have to be very clear about what you want your audience to experience. Should they understand this as the elephant disappeared or does the elephant appear or did I cut the lady in half? So if you get confused about which of those you're doing, you start cutting an elephant in half and the lady appears. So if you don't know what success looks like, how are you going to be able to make it happen? So you have to define the effect, as the audience would describe it to their friends and family on the car ride home. Then what do I need to do to make that happen? And then you work backwards from the end. So, yeah, you've got to know what the bullseye is. Create a bullseye, then invent a bow and arrow, then develop the skills to shoot the bullseye. And hey, look, now you're a magician.

Dex Randall (00:11:55) - Yeah, I can kind of get the steps. One and three would be okay, but shooting the bullseye number two step would be.

Dex Randall (00:12:02) - A matter of enormous depth of experience.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:12:05) - Yeah, sometimes there are things that I practice for two years before I feel comfortable enough that, yeah, I could I could do this on stage and make it look like I'm not doing anything.

Dex Randall (00:12:19) - Yeah, Well. Well, I know you did do it for, what was it, 19 years or something? Was it? Yeah, it was a span. Right?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:12:26) - Yeah. My my first paid engagement was when I was 13 years old. I did walk around magic tricks at a company's summer picnic for all of their employees. And right now, I'm 40. So whatever that math works out to be, that's. That's how long I've been a professional.

Dex Randall (00:12:47) - I think it's fascinating as well that we can combine these kind of very public performative stuff with being an introvert, because a lot of the people I meet appear to be externally extrovert, but in fact are super introvert. As I myself am, I really very, very introverted.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:13:06) - Yeah, me too. And and I early on realized that it was the extroverts.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:13:12) - It was the people who could speak up for themselves. It were the it was the folks who could ask for what they want. That seemed to get it. And staying quiet and not asking for it or what didn't really get me. Much of what I enjoyed and what helped me come out of my shell was my first mentor, Randall Thompson, who taught me how to juggle fire and clown and perform. I saw him work so much that I could do his whole show in my sleep. And he says, Yeah, do my show Here, you try it. And then I would just run his show. I would say what he says. I would do the tricks he did. I would juggle the way that he juggled and I would get the laughter in the right spots. I would get applause in the right spots. I would get the oh, wow, that was impressive at the right spots. And that's when I realized the power of a good script because it wasn't me. I wasn't having to figure anything out.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:14:17) - All I had to do was do what he did. I get what he got. Well, that's cool. So now it's no question of my self-worth. It's no judgment on me. It's not even really me. It's me saying the words that I know work. So what do I have to worry about? So it really helped me kind of free myself from the. The. Oh, they're they're going to think I'm not good or they're not going to be happy with it or whatever. Those voices in your head that keep you from asking for what you want. It's just like, Oh, this is way better. That was it. But I'm still exhausted by being around a lot of people all the time.

Dex Randall (00:15:04) - Yeah, well, it's just you and me here. You'll be fine, but nice. Okay, here's. Here's just a slight aside for the listeners for a moment. You might have wondered why on earth I've invited a magician and mentalist onto the show today. And really, it's a lot about understanding human psychology, understanding our behaviors, understanding why we don't ask for what we want.

Dex Randall (00:15:26) - And it's about our belief systems and what we can see and what we can't see, and also how we choose to communicate, whether we. Communicate to influence or whether we have any power and agency. Because really, when we're in burnout, what we've done to a large extent is abandoned our own agency and our own power and our own influence and really think, okay, let's understand ourselves a little bit more so we can reclaim that back again and live a little bit more easily in our own skin, whether we're introvert or extrovert or anywhere on that spectrum. So one of the things you I know about you so far is you also have a history with martial arts. And the impression I'm forming is that that is somehow connected with your magic tricks and mentalism. Is that how it works for you?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:16:17) - For sure. For sure. It's kind of a different path to the same destination because the mentalism and intellectual side and metacognition and thinking about thinking it can often lead to the trap of spiraling out into fantasy world or just getting caught in that that thought loop trap.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:16:41) - And it's really difficult to be caught in a thought loop trap when somebody's trying to punch you in the face. It's a really, really good way to stay present in the moment and embodied. So to me, martial arts is a great moving meditation that forces you kind of fast track, forces you out of the world and realm of overthinking into. Can I align my thoughts, motivation and body to a single goal and then move my whole life in that direction? So it helps you align every element of who you are to a singular purpose. And when so many people are distracted or have competing values or they're confused about what they want. How in the world could they stand in the way of somebody whose whole life is focused in one direction and all of their momentum is behind them? So it it's a great context to understand real life physics that gives you that fundamental understanding for more and more abstract layers, like you're breathing your emotions and then your thoughts.

Dex Randall (00:18:15) - Hmm. I'm picking up a kind of Japanese mindset here.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:18:19) - A pretty, pretty strong. Yeah, for sure. And and a lot of what I practice is Wing Chun Kung Fu, which is a kind of a Southern Chinese flavor, martial arts that has a lot of cross-pollination with a lot of other stuff.

Dex Randall (00:18:38) - Mm. But the and the thing that popped into my mind is the concept of dying before battle so that when you get in battle, you're really totally present. You don't have any of that other stuff clouding your mind.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:18:50) - Right. And and that shows up weirdly in sales. So what I'm doing sales training, that's something that I communicate in a little different way. I don't I try not to punch people in the face, even though it would be a really easy lesson, but it's 100% engaged and 0% attached to the outcome. So you are you are right there. You are present. You are 100% focused on how can I help you in order for me to help you, I need to understand you. I need to understand your situation. I need to understand what you're facing.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:19:30) - I need to understand all of this. And when my thoughts, feelings and actions are all aligned on helping you, sales is so much easier. The trap is trying to do that so that you close the deal and then I get my commission. And if you're attached to only closing the deal, you're not going to you're not going to make it happen because you're now at cross-purposes. You're no longer focused on only helping. And if you can help them by signing them on as a client, then great. But if not, then I want to help put you in the right direction. So that's why 100% engaged, 0% attached is a very strong kung fu lesson.

Dex Randall (00:20:22) - Well, I'm with you on that one. And the thing I was thinking when you were talking about overthinking, overthinking takes us out of the present moment because it always puts us in the past. We're basically in confirmation bias. I just want to confirm that everything I've thought in the past is still true. So I'm going to live back there.

Dex Randall (00:20:38) - New things become completely important. New experiences become impossible. Then in the present moment when we're stuck in this is who I am. So there. It's the same. Like I can understand now why you've transitioned into coaching. You've you've almost what you've said until now has really told me about that bridge for you into. Okay, if I understand magic and mentalism, then I understand sales and I understand coaching. Then I understand how to communicate. And the human. The human dynamic. It's the same expression you've just given me is essentially cognitive behavioral therapy.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:21:18) - Right. Right. Without the degree. But I've. I've done this on stages all over the world. I don't know. I don't know where you grew up. I don't care where you grew up. This is going to work. And an analogy I like to use is imagine the human operating system. And there are some people who know how to hunt and peck and type, and that's all they know how to do on their own mental computer. And then there are some people that learn the shortcut keys and they can control C, control V to copy and paste instead of the slow way of doing it.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:21:57) - So even if you learn just that little bit about your own operating system, you're ahead of most people. And then there are the hackers who know how to write their own programs, who can gain root level access to your operating system and then get your system to do things you never knew it was possible to do. That person is completely unknown to most people. So to me, that's what applied psychology is. That's what Applied Mentalism is understanding the root human operating system and knowing how to gain access to all the resources at your disposal, which are so much more powerful than most people who are pecking and typing, never even know their system is capable of.

Dex Randall (00:22:52) - Yeah. And I think what we call that is marketing and sales really, isn't it, generally?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:22:56) - Yep, exactly. Marketing, framing your message so that other people will understand it and want it because you can help them. And then sales is having them trust you enough with their dollars in order to solve their issues and problems. And then client retention is making them happy that they decided to trust you.

Dex Randall (00:23:19) - So can you give us a little example then of this kind of influence that you might. Have over somebody doing something unexpected. For sure. Unexpected to them. Not unexpected to you.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:23:32) - Yeah. Yeah. If it were surprise to me, that would mean I was really bad at my job, for sure. So the one. One. Kind of example that I think is a really clear example of a lot of this stuff is do you have an iPhone or Android? What what kind of phone do you have?

Dex Randall (00:23:52) - I have an Android.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:23:54) - Okay. If you would put it face down on the table in front of you. And also for you listening to this right now, you can try this out. I strongly suggest you don't do this. If you're driving, Please wait until you're somewhere that you can fully attend to this. So if you're not in a place where you could do that, pause it. Come back to this when you're at your home or your office. Right? So there's our legal disclaimer.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:24:20) - If they wreck their car, it's on them. Okay, good. So following along, um, when when I do this in person, I usually say, well, left handed people tend to be better at this. So if you're left handed, awesome. You've got an advantage. Sorry. Right handed people. You're just not. Not as good at this. But. On your home screen. Like when you pick up your phone, you light it up, you unlock it, and then you're on your main home screen. You might have a couple of pages, but there's one that you see more than others. In the upper left hand corner, there's a widget, there's a folder, there's an icon, there's something in the upper left hand corner. And I would love for you to lock in your mind what you think that is, right? Like, just think about it, lock it in. And then when I count to three on three, I'm going to ask you, turn your phone over, light it up, unlock it, check, then put it down.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:25:32) - Right. So you're just going to. You're going to. Test yourself to verify whether you get it right or wrong. So here we go. One, two, three. Go for it. Cool. So put it face down. Did you get it right or wrong?

Dex Randall (00:25:52) - Wrong.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:25:53) - All right. So it's something that we see a couple hundred times a day and our brain doesn't pay attention to it. And then the the weirder angle is if you've got an Android or an iPhone, for the most part, 99% of them, the the lock screen when you first light it up, shows you the time. If you notice the time when you saw it.

Dex Randall (00:26:18) - Yes.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:26:20) - Okay. You're about 1% of the of the world. Most people will just be like, no, I was so focused on the the folder and almost nobody gets both of them. Right. So it's. It's kind of weird, right, Because. What you think is valuable. Tends to put blinders on for what you pay attention to.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:26:49) - So even though you see it all the time. You're not able to recall what it is that you think you know. So you would have believed. I know what's on my home screen, but you don't actually know it. You've got the illusion of understanding the illusion. You know, I was.

Dex Randall (00:27:10) - Panicking because I couldn't think what it was. Right? Actually, my lock screen, the top left is the time, which is the one I thought it would be. Right. But when I log in, when I do the passcode, it switches with the date and the date goes to the top and the time goes further down. So that's funny. I blew it. I blew it with the date.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:27:30) - That's it. And a lot of people who follow log, they completely ignored their lock screen. Right? And then I could be like, if I gave you if I said I could give you $100, could you tell me what time it is? And nobody knows. And it's because. Yeah.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:27:45) - What you've what you framed as valuable blinds you to other ways of seeing things. So it's your value structure. Guarantees that you will not see any information that is counter to your current value structure because your mind will make sure you don't see anything that would invalidate what you value. It's that's that's wild to me. And that happens.

Dex Randall (00:28:17) - Pretty wild. Yeah.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:28:18) - Multiple levels on multiple dimensions in your life all the time. So it's kind of like what what do you want to pay attention to? Because you're going to ignore everything else. So when people say, Oh, I don't have any opportunities, I don't have any chances, it's like, well, you do. They don't look like what you want them to look like, so you don't see them. So then you say they they don't happen. That's that's a real, real unsettling thing to understand.

Dex Randall (00:28:55) - I think there are many, many unsettling things about human psychology because that's all I'm doing really, when I'm coaching is I'm helping people see what they can't see and unsee what they the only thing they ever see.

Dex Randall (00:29:07) - Right, right.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:29:09) - And and that's that's really important to have somebody outside your box to tell you there's a whole world outside your box. There's a bigger box. You can never be outside the box. But when when you're a kid, you learn how the world works within the framework of your experience. That sets your value structure, that dictates the choices you're going to make, that create the experiences that are going to reinforce the value structure that dictate the choices you're going to make, the actions you take. So it's the self-fulfilling loop prophecy that continues through your whole life, which means that you're going to miss all the other ways that might reinforce a different belief about life like. Love means I always get hurt. People are awful. Humans are bad, the world is awful. So then you pay attention to the awful things so that you can't see the good things which leads you to believe that only bad things exist. And then now you're in that spiral.

Dex Randall (00:30:15) - When I invited you onto this show, I never imagined that you and I would be thinking so much alike on things.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:30:22) - Right. It's. It's a weird way to get there, but it really is just getting to the to the heart of how the mind works to help people use that power intentionally instead of being at the mercy of some autopilot that was set 30 years ago. Now, that's that's really why the performing is a lot of fun. I still do it. It helps people forget their problems for an hour, but then they go right back to their miserable life. Or I can teach people the the strategies and approaches I've used to grow up in a trailer park in poor mountains, North Carolina, to be able to travel for a living. Work with cool companies. That doesn't happen on accident. So that's why I realized, okay, I could still just do the performing and it makes me feel good, makes the audience happy. And then they go back and that's it. Or I can help people solve their issues that they've had for a long time to free themselves up, to put that creative energy into doing what they've always wanted to do.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:31:40) - So that's that's really the motivation behind. Opening up a whole new avenue of my life beyond the performing into the coaching, the consulting, the corporate sales training that I do, all those soft skill training, it's all mentalism. Wearing a business suit.

Dex Randall (00:32:03) - Yeah. And if I'm not much mistaken, you're consulting on trade shows now. Is that right?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:32:10) - I am. I am.

Dex Randall (00:32:11) - And how did you get there?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:32:13) - Well, like everything through the back door and and the long way, because it's it's a combination of all of this stuff. Because when I was 13, when I was doing Randall's show, the show I was doing was on a sidewalk in Asheville, where I now live again, after 20 years of living all over the the country, I would go on the sidewalk on a busy Friday afternoon and juggle fire and then that would draw a crowd of people going, What is this crazy kid doing? I have to see what this is about. So I draw a crowd and then I would ask to borrow $20.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:32:57) - Don't worry, you'll get it back. And then I would borrow $20 from somebody. I would tear off the corner and then go, You can use this to identify your money later because you're going to need it. Like, Wait, what? So then I would put it in an envelope. Shuffle it with 3 or 4 other envelopes and then the game is can you win your money back? So you pick the envelope. I burned the others and then you open it up to great fanfare and applause because you found your money. Oh, you're saying it's empty? Well, we'll get back to that maybe and then move on. Well, now you've got to. You've got a crowd of 20 people going. Did that kid just burn that guy's 20 bucks? What's he going to do? How? They're not going anywhere. They're going nowhere. I've got them for the next 12 minutes to do whatever I want. So then we do the show, and then the finale is that that guy's $20 is in a lemon that I was juggling before I borrowed the money, and the corners match perfectly.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:34:04) - And then I say, Oh, well, you don't want to walk around with a soggy 20 bucks. You can put it in my hat if you'd like, and if anybody else would be moved to donate money to the cause, I would genuinely appreciate it. And then that's how I made party money. And people would say, Well, yeah, that was fun enough. But yeah, let me throw in five, ten bucks, 20 bucks. So I was making good money having fun on the sidewalk. Now, what is a trade show? It's a sidewalk where people are walking to a presentation or something else. They're not there to come to your booth. So you need somebody or something that proactively generates interest and draws people in. That's me. So I build a crowd of 20 people. Then I do an interactive, thinly veiled commercial for my client. That has amazing moments. And right before the big reveal, say, oh, we here at Widget Co really would like to thank you for stopping by.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:35:11) - Really appreciate you being here. We pride ourselves on this. We pride ourselves on that and we also are fantastic at this. So if you're here at the trade show for those things, we'd love to talk to you. Go talk to Carl and and Stacey over there. If you're not here for that, we've got a free gift for you just for stopping by. And we hope you have a great time. And also all of you, make sure you go get your friends, bring them back, because I would love to show them a good time to. And that's it. We run that machine twice an hour. Here's what it does. It makes sure that the only people talking to Eric and Stacy over there are people who want what they've got. So there's no follow up with people who only wanted the iPad for the free giveaway. So you've eliminated all the expense of following up with 200 people that were just hoping for the iPad. They don't care who you are. So that saving alone more than justifies my fees.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:36:14) - But that's also how I get my clients about five times as many conversations after trade shows than just having Eric and Stacey trying to do this on their own.

Dex Randall (00:36:27) - I can imagine.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:36:28) - It's the street performing, it's the messaging. I work with them for months leading up to it to to craft that messaging perfectly, which gets everybody on the same page in terms of what the job of this trade show is. So the CEO, the CFO, the chief operating officer, the marketing director, the person who's booked me, I make them sit in a room until they agree on what those three details are. Which saves the butt of my client. The person who's hiring me from having five people want five different outcomes from the trade show experience, which is what I hear is a huge problem all the time. Right? So that's that's why trade shows. It's one of the ways that I can help companies the most in the shortest amount of time.

Dex Randall (00:37:21) - So naturally, I'm very curious if you have a. Webinar and Facebook ad version of that.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:37:29) - Well, I've been working with a digital marketing agency. And here in America, they've, they've been growing like gangbusters. And I got a job with them in the sales team just to see what a normal job is like. And it was a lot of fun. But I was like, you know, why are we doing it this way? We should be doing it that way. If, if, if it were me, I'd be doing it this way, because this is how I worked with BP. And they're just like, All right, all right, all right. We want you to architect the whole experience. We want you to to completely re-engineer all of our sales process from first contact all the way through to delivery. And part of my job of re-architecting that was to talk with all the experts who are phenomenal at Facebook ads, all the folks that are great with Google ads and all of that. So yeah, yeah, it's it's a lot of fun to help companies architect their entire buyer's journey.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:38:32) - Like it's a big magic trick that ends in their customer being delighted that you've exceeded their expectations, not lied to them about what they could expect. Right. But it's all the same process. It really is.

Dex Randall (00:38:50) - Which by now you've got an enormous amount of experience out.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:38:55) - Yeah, yeah. Because it's marketing, It's sales. I used to do graphic design for other performers, so I've built. Hundreds and hundreds of websites and posters and DVD cases and promo posters and all that stuff. So basically, any way you could communicate an idea, I've I've done it at a professional level.

Dex Randall (00:39:19) - Yeah, I'm impressed in terms of the people who are listening today. So I work with executives and leaders in burnout, professional men. Is there is a sort of some tip or idea that you would want to share with those people to help them out a little bit.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:39:41) - I would point to the value of having somebody outside your box to show you the world outside your box, because as we've seen, it's real hard to learn something you think you already know.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:39:56) - You thought you already knew what was in that corner. So why would you ever think to question it? So it is near impossible for an individual to dismantle all those things. And there's a quote along the lines of it's not what you don't know that's going to get you. It's the stuff you know for sure that just ain't so. That that'll get you. So that's burnout. A lot of the issues and problems that you've had over time are the result of the way you think about your problems and issues, and you need somebody who can help you unthank those things, somebody like us to help you find more interesting problems, you're never going to have zero problems. My goal is I want more interesting problems this year than I had last year. That's that's it. And the cooler people you meet, the the weirder friends you make, the more accomplished people you hang out with, the the easier time it is to have more interesting issues.

Dex Randall (00:41:06) - Well, I love that answer. Yeah, love that answer.

Dex Randall (00:41:09) - So we're about out of time today, but I just wondered if there's anything that you would like to say on closing or anything that you'd like to tell us about that you're doing?

Jonathan Pritchard (00:41:17) - Ooh, I, I do a lot and a lot of folks. It's tough for people who don't do a lot to imagine that you could do so much at a professional level, right? Like folks that are like, I just keep my head down. I just do this one thing and that's it. And you're like, Oh, you're a performer. Oh, and you're a corporate coach. Oh, and you own a trade show company. Oh, and you do martial arts. Oh, And so, okay, I guess it couldn't be good because they judge people, judge you through the lens of their incompetence. Really. Right. Like to not put it to to gently. That's that's it. But to the awesome people who understand that life is a game and you can just play as many different versions of it as you want.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:42:10) - Awesome. Let's let's do it. So the easiest place to to find me is just I can read minds.com and then that's my hub where you can find my books, my courses and I'm building out the Institute of Applied Mentalism to help companies re-architect their value propositions, their investor pitches. If you're a startup, if you need more effective sales, if you need more effective negotiations, presentation skills, all that stuff that's living under the Institute of Applied Mentalism, which you can find it Applied mentalism super easy.

Dex Randall (00:42:51) - Well as well. I'm going to put all those links in the show notes so people should have them handy.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:42:56) - Well, thank you. Thank you very much.

Dex Randall (00:42:59) - Really do appreciate your time today. That's been a fascinating. Set of answers. You've given me to those questions and thank you so much for being here.

Jonathan Pritchard (00:43:08) - Well, it's it's really an honor to be invited to share my thoughts. So thanks so much for for making it happen.

Dex Randall (00:43:15) - Pleasure. And for all of you listening, if you have enjoyed today's show, I'd really love you to subscribe, rate and review the podcast.

Dex Randall (00:43:23) - It's really how we help more people who are suffering and burnout to access a solution. If you yourself are in burnout, listen to the link at the end. You must come and talk to me about how to recover quickly and sustainably and get back to your best performance at work, your best leadership and most of all, enjoyment inside work. And now. If you're in burnout and ready to recover. Come and join my burnout to leadership program. You can book in to talk with me a burnout round or just tell me what's bugging you and let's make a plan to fix it.