Memory Master - The Amazing Nigel! #178

They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys, ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 178 of the magic guys this is incredible we've made it this far and not uh killed each other but to my left we have nick k welcome to the show friend oh yeah down below we got doug khan as if there's animosity why would we kill each other there we've never even been like any grumbling in the ranks ever that's so true that's so

true i think i think it's because you know we just get along so well and there's no money involved so that's probably it it's not commercial we don't have money involved that's fine otherwise, we're all a minimum what three four hour flight away minimum that's right yeah yeah true true True. It would actually be difficult to have it out with one another, wouldn't it? Yeah. But look, we're here again. We're here and we're here with some friends. We can see Dragotea, Josh Logan, Jimmy Farris.

We got our boy Christopher Wayne in the building as well, otherwise known as Daddy. Dad joke magic. Scotty P, Adonis. This is the goods. Tim Askin. And we want to start off today's episode with one of you guys giving us some love on our SpeakPipe. Remember, you can send them in anytime and we play them on the episode. Speakpipe.com forward slash TheMagicGuys or just head to our website to do that. Anyway, let's listen to a little message from our friend, Jimmy Farrister.

Hey, guys. It's Jennifer, Jimmy's wife. We are sitting out here on the back porch. It's Sunday, Father's Day. We're just hanging out here and wanted to let you guys know how great the magic show went at the country club It was table magic and it went fabulously. I mean he just rolled around Babe, i'm the magician i'm supposed to be talking I love that jennifer's weird. No, but she is my backbone. She's Yeah, it's great. You know what? If you want to

speak, you can. He made $275 for like three hours. Woo! Doing what I love. It was great. We got a couple gigs off of it. Oh, they covered her alcohol, too, and all our food, too. Yeah. Boom. Food and alcohol covered. That's where it's probably triple the fee. This RV thing. We're going to... I mean, yeah, I've been doing this as a hobbyist for 20 years. Most of our parties that we host, I'm doing some kind of silliness. Oh, man. We went to a friend's house last night. I just have to get this in

there. I heard the biggest laughs that I've ever heard from his magic. Like it was big laughs, big, big, big laughs. Anyway, people that hadn't seen it. Anyways, great. So that's our gig RVing through America. I see that my time's ending. Shit. Go, babe. Go. Nope. That's what we're going to do. We're going to do the magic and we're going to make, we're going to have the. Thank you guys for all the influence that you've had on Jimmy. I don't know that he'd be worries without you. Bye.

So. so off that's yeah we're really making a difference people it is all about community can we please have more wives calling in gloating about how great their husband's magic is to have a wife that talks you up like that is like she's still amazed by the magic like that's yeah happy that's the word i was looking for that won't last forever though he'll eventually ruin in her.

That's so good. It never lasts, right? The wife always ends up disgruntled. Honey, get out of my face! In the best way. Yeah, that's right. She just hasn't picked enough cards yet. Well, you know what, folks? Speaking of people who are entirely talented with the ladies, who better than our next guest? Take it away, John. Oh, yeah. So this gentleman, I've had the pleasure of introducing every week at the Theatre of Magic, where him and I and Christopher Wayne run this show.

But in the meantime, in the business world, this guy is a beast. He's an underground magician, I call him, because you never really hear of him. He hardly has a website, but he's booked every bloody week to facilitate and emcee events and just run conferences. And he has this amazing skill set, which we'll talk about, which a handful of people in the world, I feel like, have this and use it wisely in the entertainment space.

So we're going to bring him on. Ladies and gentlemen, please welcome the amazing Nigel. Let's get it. Music.

That's something we should talk about too but yeah you may or may not realize this nigel but you've been such an influence on the i will definitely say the austral asian scene both myself and magicians in nz it's so cool to be able to share you with the rest of the planet so everyone knows who you are so please tell us nigel tell us who you are i'm nudge yes i'm a corporate entertainer so i don't all i do is i focus on corporate only magician comedian mc facilitator

keynote speaker team builder do you have a business card and if so what's what's the title of the car i don't have any marketing i have no real social media i have no social media we had to con him to starting up an instagram and he's like when we make clips from our show and i'm like can i put this up and he's like yeah i don't care like do it i don't put whatever you want anyway one of those guys who was successful for 20 years before social media happened and

now he's just people know he's good so he gets work so he's telling the wife how happy it is to have an actual worker on here for once yeah um yeah i do that i do a lot of other things as well as doing all that stuff as well is it not always magic when you perform or like sorry when you When you perform, you do like a keynote speaking, perhaps maybe it's not magic or.

Yeah, I, if it's a keynote, I'm doing it on memory because what I'm known for in this country is I'll do my show and then I'll, before the show, I'll go around and meet everyone. And at the end of the show, I rattle off everyone's name as my closer. And when we say everyone's name, we mean like a room full of like 300 people plus. Yeah. Could I, could I share that story and what that experience was like?

So i remember it really well because you were the opening act of the final night of the genie convention it was the very first time i actually done a lecture it was a lecture organized by sean taylor one of our one of our greats here in oz and i didn't met nige before i didn't know that we had this caliber of like world-class talent entertainment like it was amazing and then nigel's walking around the table and just going your name cool your name cool your name nice to

meet you and your name nice to meet you and i was like that was a weird interaction and then he just runs off into the night show starts and he does awesome magic and then at the end of it he gets everyone to stand up now just to put to paint the picture we're all seated at tables i believe it was close to 300 people 200 something odd people that night well i think there was 200 because i knew i only had a short time frame to learn it all so it was a high pressure one that one.

Yeah. So we had like 200 people in the room. Everyone at their table stood up and then one by one, he went, he, they, he even let people choose the table number if they wanted to. And he would choose the table and then he would say each person's name and each person just sat down and he remembered every single person's name. And we're not talking like, we're talking about people's names who you can't even like, if you met them, you'd be like, hi, what's your name?

And it's like some strange Korean name that you never heard before that immediately goes in and out of your head. It sticks in Nigel's brains and he remembers every single person's names of all ethnicities. It's so impressive. Sometimes you meet like Anabil or Rajwan, and I'm like, I'm not going to remember that name. But somehow he does that, and he remembered every single person's name. When you say it's a short time span, how long would it take you to memorize a room full of 200 people?

Okay, so 200 nowadays. nowadays if i'm on song now it comes a lot down to a believe it or not mental state you've got to be incredibly positive when you do this stuff it's it's as soon as you doubt yourself you're screwed when i first started it would take me a solid two to almost two and a half hours to learn 200 names because i did eight years of theater restaurants and that's where i started the name thing so it's actually started as a bet for alcohol one of the one

of the boys in the in the show said i bet you to do the room sure what's the bet uh beer sure i'm in and then. 45 the first night and then uh you could not memorize 45 names is that that was the wager that was the wager he said i couldn't do 45 names so i spent literally two hours going around go what's your name again what's your name again trying to get it just wrote memory for that sorry you just did like hard memory you didn't it was i'm curious of your techniques like there's There's

different ways to approach these things. So there is. So when it started for me, it was brute force. I did 45 first night, 90 the second night, 154 the third night. And then I took it happening. So going back to your original question, Doug, how long does it take? When I first started, it was two, two to two and a half hours. Nowadays, if I'm on song, I can get 200 names in less than an hour. Wow. And that just because this thing is just a muscle, a muscle that needs to be exercised.

I mean, it takes that long to meet that many people. you have probably three or four seconds a person how do it all yeah it's literally bang bang bang bang bang and when like when i do it and i rattle it off it is fast it's not i'm not even thinking i'm just going okay here's john george margaret frank it's like okay so you can do that what about the table number and connect the name how does that all fit in your brain that'll be a different techniques.

So I'll do, so the base technique that I use, and these techniques are as old as a hill. So when I started, I, I basically brute force, and then I came up with a system, and then I started researching it. You developed your own approach first? My own approach first. So this is the way my head's going to think about it. And Josh knows him. Researching it, give us some recommendations there, if we could start with that. Wherever a person interested, go.

To make it simpler, we meet people on a daily basis when we're roving or even just at a party, dinner table.

Let's go small scale so that we can get anyone what is the simplest way on a small scale or even something as primitive as like the dude that makes my coffee every morning i can never remember that cat's name right okay so let's say you're doing a close-up gig and there are four people in the group normally when i come up to that i'll get their name straight away and for me it's it's straight in but if you're new to this type of scenario the number one thing is you have to to listen.

If you don't listen to the people, you're not going to remember. Don't worry about what you are and what, you know your patter, you know what you're going to do, you know your presence, focus on them. It's all about them. Listen to what they're saying and then repeat the name straight back to them. So if you go, oh, what's your name? And Doug goes, oh, I'm Doug. Oh, g'day, Doug. How are you, Doug?

Now I've said Doug twice already. And then if you get a foreign name or an asian name you can then go back oh ramajan okay right yeah was it am i saying that right you know i love rolling my eyes i want to do it and then they'll go oh not quite and then they'll put an inflection on it and then you'll need to change your tongue position so you listen to the sounds that they're saying if it's an if it is a a foreign name for you so you listen you repeat the name

and and i can tell you right now if you pay attention to someone's name like doug Was it Doug? Was it? Which country are you from, Doug? I'm asking you questions and it makes you feel nice. Like how many times have you been at a place and someone's calling you by name and asking you questions that are personal to you? It makes you feel special. I love hearing their name. Yeah. People love it. I've made good coin out of it, so I'm happy.

So you listen for the name, you repeat the name. Now, the next thing you want to do is you want to grab, and this is going to sound horrible, and it is horrible, you want to grab a facial feature. The most negative facial feature on them, just don't tell them. Oh, wow. Well, so the notion is look at the name and associate it with a physical feature. So by that notion, ugly people, easy to remember because you remembered me like immediately. And now I don't know how to feel about it.

Well, I've got some images of you, Nick, and they're not appropriate for this podcast. Yeah.

So listen for the name, repeat the name. You want to grab a facial feature. Now you can, it's, I like using the negative because you get a good gag out of it, but it's the most prominent feature on that person's face, whether it be positive or negative, it's up to that person because everyone will see someone differently. I'll look at Josh and I'll see something and then Nick will look at Josh and he'll see, yeah, exactly. He'll see blowfish. He'll see something else.

So you want to understand yourself and what you're doing. Next thing you want to do after that is you want to come up with another image for the name.

So i switch everything into images so i'm using both my audio and my visual i think it's kinesthetics it's called where i'm using both those factors into it and then i place that image back on the person's face those techniques were developed back in the 1600s so i came up with that technique and then i researched it and then went oh this is as old as the hills 500 bc 800, bc and then all the modern techniques that you find nowadays are all dated back down to the 16th century.

And basically I went, okay, so someone's already thought of this stuff and these are all just my little. It's in bits that it's like, like you grab a magic routine and then you grab that base routine. And like Nick, when you sat at my place and we worked on that, that routine that we've come up with, we started with one routine and then we've developed into something else. And memory is the same thing. You get a base route, memory technique, and then you, you build it to what you

want. So it was interesting. I was disappointed when I found out it was as old as the hills. I thought it was new here. No, no. Yeah. Back in the day when there was no Google, they had Titus on the hill who just memorized all the knowledge. And you'd go ask him, and he knew what it was because he had some memory palace as a popular way to do it. Yeah, that's another one. Peg system, Roman rooms. There's a whole heap of different techniques you can do.

What I found interesting then is that you tie it to a physical feature because one thing that I tend to do is to tie it to a non-permanent feature. So for example, Mr. Blue shirt, you know, you know, Madam Red dress, whatever it might be. But the point is, is that the moment they put a jacket on, I forget their name. Yeah. Yeah. I used to do that. Okay. Here's a, here's an interesting thing. So I'll look at this, right?

So you boys look at me and obviously if you listen on the podcast, you can't look, but if you're on the, on the YouTube, you can look at me. So have a look at me. All right. Shut your eyes. Okay. Everyone shut your eyes. Yep.

Yeah. Open your eyes up again. yes i've changed haven't i son of a bitch and so have all you boys it's just like um yeah so in answer that nick you have to be present of what they're wearing and particularly if you're going to meet them again obviously they're not going to be wearing a blue shirt or a red dress the next time around so you need to be conscious of everything like with the theater I've got now a system set up where when people come in again,

I know exactly who they are, what they look like. So that way I can come back when they come back again, I can get them and go, oh yeah, you were with these people. These are the people you saw. This is, and we just chat like we're old friends. This is actually really crazy. Could you talk a bit more about that? Cause I've, I've, I've seen these files of like our audience photos of our audience and stuff. Yeah. Yeah, so it's almost too good a secret to share, man. Like, I'm going to say it.

Unless you know how to remember everyone's names. Like, it's not of use. You're at the theater of magic. People are coming in and you're getting this information as they come in the door, right? I get all the information, come in the door, and then I write lots of notes at the end of the night. So basically, my day at the theater starts at around 11-ish. I get all the rest of the paraphernalia ready. I bump in the show, set up.

The three of us do the three shows. We all bump out, and then I come home for another two hours writing notes about what's just happened. After the show? After the show. So if people return, you have that knowledge now in your banks?

And yeah i have all the information i have when people rock up and is that sorry so people will come back come back to the show and you'll oh yeah yeah i'll definitely use it that's so some people come back only to see nigel's show because they they just feel like he's a friend now yeah idiots no that's how you know you're good when your audience feels that way yeah and look so could we take that to the corporate world so like why do

you think you've done so well in the corporate world the last 20 years or however and how do you apply that to, getting so much worse that's an interesting question 30 years in the corporate world is a long long time look from a corporate perspective from a business if we if we're switching from From that mindset to a business mindset, then it allows other opportunities.

If you're not just doing a magic show, you're actually providing educational benefit or knowledge to the people to help them, particularly in sales and customer service. Those are the strong sets. They need to know people's names and know information about people. So if you can give them tips and trips to help them out. Do you offer an educational experience as well? Yeah, I do a keynote and a workshop as well on memory techniques where I sit down and I actually force them to do – oh, jeez.

It's got me. Sorry, that was my stomach playing up there. Sure. Just a little bit of crop dusting, weren't you? It's – yeah, so I've forgotten the question now. No, well, basically, I mean, I can summarize it. Nigel's – that was my plan. That's on it. Nigel Nigel does so well in the business world because he can emcee an event. He can facilitate a conference. He can do a keynote speak.

He can do magic. Yeah. And what I was alluding to, Nigel, was like, how has being able to use your memory in an entertainment sense, like being able to remember clients and like the fact that how long have clients been working for you? Like, sorry, been rebooking you for it. That's what I'm kind of getting at. Like, aside from memory work, how have you, what, like, what do you think the skills are that you bring to your clients that's made you get rebooked so much and have so much work?

I know the answer, but I want to hear from. Um, I, I care about it. It's, it's never about me. I go into a corporate gig and it's never about me. It's about, it's about them. The ego is left at the door. And if, if my ego gets too big, my brother knocks me down big time. He, he seen a lot of my shows and I'll, I'll do a show. I get a standing ovation and he went, well, you got that wrong. You did that wrong. Your timing was out out here.

You should have done this when this happened. And I'm like, okay, right here, head down back to work. Josh has seen me do it at the theater where I will do a killing show. And then I'll go, I should have done this better. I could have done that. I should have worked on this. And then Chris, Chris, our other partner, he's actually taught me to actually stop, enjoy the moment, and then analyze it later on. Just enjoy the win. So going into a corporate thing, it's all about the client.

If you make that client happy, unhappy, they'll rebook you. You make them the star, not yourself the star. Other things I do in corporate that would be a little bit different is I'll get there early. I'll rove. If they turn to me, I'm not merely meant to do a show and they go, oh, our MC's dropped out. I go, sure, I'll MC for you. Not a problem. And just do it. And they go, extra fee. And I go, no, no, don't worry about it. She'll be fine.

You got me for the night. Use and abuse me as you see fit. And that's pretty much my philosophy. Do you have an agent or self-booking? I would assume you're mostly the latter. I started out. So I did theater restaurants for eight years. I did three years at Crazies Comedy Restaurant and five years at Brantley's. Now, Crazies. Sorry? The Trenches. The Trenches. Yes. The Trenches is exactly right. So my first night at Crazies was me standing on stage.

Doing stand-up for 10 minutes no one laughed no one applauded so then it's like okay well i got a mortgage to pay here let's do it again the next night so i get up next night night two pull up the pants second night no one laughs i get this that's just a single person doing a one unclad it's almost better to get nothing than the one the one no oh it's just the one that was like okay in between the legs wiggles nice oh man it was

and then it was just um yeah just keep working at it so it was a it was a tough lessons well if we could focus on the comedy aspect that perhaps a lot of people don't think about with their lines and so forth that you know we read a lot of books from different periods of time where there might be some jokes or gags in there that might deem appropriate.

Do you find now, with the year being 2024, that comedy has changed so much and people do tend to get offended? Or is it something that you've always been clean cut? Or have you had to find that you've made some adjustments as time goes on? Best piece of advice I was given by the owner of Crazies, which he didn't take his own advice, was I want you to be, because he said, go on stage. He says, I want you to be clean, but clever.

And that is the best piece of advice I'd ever gotten. I can go into any corporate and I'm clean. There's no religious jokes. There's no political jokes. There's no swearing. There is nothing that's going to be considered inappropriate at all.

And then you learn and you work harder because obviously you can you know some jokes that are inappropriate will get a good laugh so to be clean and funny is a lot more work to get there but a lot more benefit at the end of the day if you want to do corporates.

That's great advice clean and clever yeah if you want to be asked back for sure you don't want to upset anyone right no no and on the it has changed over the years over the 30 years nick it's changed a lot one of the gags that i absolutely love i can't do it anymore and it's like i got a whole set where i'm getting pulled over by the cops and there's a whole heap of other gags in there and then eventually goes the the copper see copper says

step out of the car so i step out of the car and the cop is a dwarf. He goes, I'm not happy. I said, well, which one are you then? The gag hill absolutely kills. And I did it one night in corporate a few years ago and the client's gone, love the show. And I went, dwarf. She went, yeah, you can't say it to anyone. And I went, you're kidding. So you just adjust. You go, think about it.

Well, no, can't do it. And one thing that Nigel does too at his corporates, which is something to think about for us magicians, is instead of charging an hourly rate, Nigel will charge an appearance fee so that he's just, the client isn't worrying about, oh, when can we have him rove to make up that hour? Not that he does much roving, but it's like, instead of them going, oh, but there's going to be speeches. Will he still do the hour? Is that going to, it's just like,

I'm there to entertain everyone for whatever time you need. And then that's, you know, like you said, use and abuse me. And I imagine that's worked out pretty well because some people think clients might overuse that, that appearance fee, but that doesn't seem to be the case. You have to be a jack of all trades to make this work for you so that you can offer them multiple, you know, benefits. Yeah. Yeah. They'll come back and they'll bring you back as just an emcee to emcee their awards.

Or if it's a multi-day conference, I'll come back and do the whole conferencing. And that's a whole different kettle of fish from just doing a magic show if you want to get into multi-day conferencing. And everything, when I'm emceeing and doing awards, everything's memorized as well. All the notes. You don't say.

All so it's literally i get up there and i'm introducing people and they they they are which part of the company do you work for if you can get that from a crowd then you know you've done your job properly because they think because you know so much about the company so i do a lot of due diligence beforehand i'll do research i'll get it back do you have a reference book that you would suggest like for people that wanted to study something along mnemonics is

there and if not that's fine yeah well harry lorraine's got fantastic stuff for memory stuff he i went through when i started out i came up with it i grabbed all his stuff yeah so he has the memory book right which that's a great suggestion harry lorraine one of our magic teachers yeah living as a memory expert He was on like the tonight show in the United States. He called the audience's names out there. Yeah.

So, yeah. So that would be my go. If you want to get into memory, that would be my go too. Because as you go into the topic of like doing due diligence and memorizing client features, now you can use some of these other techniques and now you can memorize the speech in a short amount of time and things like this. Right? Yeah. I've got a booklet that I've written, which goes into the names, peg systems, link system. Well, there's the resource. Source? Where do you get that?

I'll send it to Josh and he can forward it on to everyone. Okay. Maybe we'll put that in the Discord, perhaps. The Magigo Discord. Man, I am interested. Yeah. And that, cause that, so that's something you give to the attendees of your keynote. Yeah. So I'll do a keynote speech, a keynote at a conference, and then everyone, every delegate gets the PDF at the end of it.

Now, one thing that you sort of just breezed over was that you familiarize yourself with the company. So what does that look like? Is that just you basically doing a Google search, reading what their web page is about? What do you kind of do there? Okay. So old days, it was, you'd jump into the websites, you'd get as much information, You'd work out what their strategies are, their culture, their key values, so you understand from an executive level what direction their company's traveling.

Then you'd use that information. Then you'd obviously talk to your client, your contact, and then if you get an opportunity to talk to some of the executives, you talk to them as well, get the information they want, find out what the theme of the conference is, what direction they want to go with the conference and then make sure you're in line with the messages they want to bring across as an emcee here's the uh grab all that information there's so much i want to try to put

in in words here nowadays chat gpt is fantastic yes I did a gig up in Cairns and I had to, it was an international conference. So everyone from around the world, it was a symposium for a bunch of engineers. So exciting stuff, incredibly boring personalities, but geez, I had to drink. My job was- I like performing for engineers. Oh, mate. For magic. Mate, oh, I find different personalities or different occupations have different personalities and you have to edit accordingly. Yeah.

So I did this gig up in Cairns and I had to interview 15 CEOs from different companies around the world. So I went chat GPT. So obviously I did my due diligence first on each of the companies. And then I went to chat GPT and found out more information and went, okay, structure me a questionnaire for them. And then I, I wore it all set up, lined it all up. And then literally it was like, they were like 10 minute interviews.

And then as the days went by, people would come up to me, I'll ask, ask the president about women in the network. It'll, it'll, it'll set him off. It's like, okay, sure. No trouble. I'll be there. So people asking questions, right, let's explore this avenue. And, like, I think I spoke to him for about 20 minutes. We were discussing this whole topic, and it was fascinating and stuff.

But doing all that stuff does help you if you're having to interview or run panels at a conference, understanding what the objective of the panel is, each of the panelists, because sometimes you'll get panelists that won't talk, and you need to get it out of them. And different little techniques. And if you know a little bit about them and stuff that they're interested in, it sparks them to start talking about it.

Nigel, get it out of him. Now, 30 years of corporate gigs, you've got to have some doozies of some stories, whether things have gone wrong, just some weird stuff's happened. Things that have gone wrong, mate. Like you've had to do gigs when you're sick. Can we just spend a bit of time on some of the good stories? Because I know this is what I want to hear, but also, yeah, all the guys want to hear what happens to a seasoned pro when you collect all these.

These stories. Okay, you guys, you had the podcast last week. We were talking about travels.

Yeah. And traveling around. So my traveling story, I'll start with that one. I was doing a gig for Nissan, and it was in Catherine, which for the listeners out there, Catherine's pretty much in the middle of Australia. It is a four-hour plane flight from Brisbane to Darwin, and then a two- or three-hour drive from Darwin down to Catherine. I've got to the airport early in the morning because it's a six o'clock flight. Plane's being delayed, delayed, delayed. Engine has blown up.

Plane don't work. I've rung my management, and we'll go back to management as well. Doug, I'll tell you what I've done with that as well. That's another question you had that we got sidetracked on there. Okay. So yeah, so the plane, I rang my management and then they've gone, I'll just stay at the airport. I'll see what we can do. So my management comes back and goes, okay, we've got stuff organized. The plane, so the plane I'm leaving on doesn't leave until three o'clock that afternoon.

Now, I start work at six and it's a four-hour flight. So I'm not landing in Darwin until seven. So I get on the plane, we land in Darwin in seven. While I've been on the plane, I get off the plane, I ring my management again. What's happening? They go, you should find someone there. What we've organized is a private charter plane for you. So I've gone, righty-o, cool. So there's a private charter plane. I find the guy who's the pilot, private charter plane.

I've left half my show on the carousel. I'm just going, grab what I want for a show, put it in my pockets, grab my costume. We hop into this little two-seater plane. And then he goes, oh, hang on a sec. He rings up the traffic controller, Darwin. He goes, right, yeah, we're good to go. He flies the wrong way up the airport, up the runway, because he's got clearance from the control because it will save us 15 minutes.

You take off the wrong way. We fly into Catherine, land in there, and then there's a limousine waiting for me. While in the plane, when we're flying in the plane, like I'm excited to go, oh, I'm flying up the front seat. This is great. He takes off. In the air, I get to the back. I get changed, and I get on my show set in the back of the plane. We land. There's a limousine that basically drives me to the venue. I get out of the venue. They're eating desserts.

There's 120 people. I've got 20 minutes before showtime. I've gone around, ripped around, learned all the names and then did an hour show and then got up the next morning at five and drove back. That's insane. Going back to your question before, Doug, in relation to management so i have exclusive management i go through onstage entertainment i have for the last god 25 years it was interesting someone calls you do you just say call them. They, they, sorry. Exclusive management.

Does that mean if someone was like, if someone, if someone rings you up night, I'm like, Oh, I saw you at a thing. Can I hire you? Doug saying, do you just then send them to me up direct? And they go, Oh, can we go direct? And I go, no, no, no, no, no. I'll go. Sure. Happy to chat with you. Happy to do the gig. I'll pass the information onto my management and then they'll, they'll handle the rest. Oh no, no. We want to go direct. No, no, no, no, no. That's not the way I work in the business.

I'm very ethical and I believe very much in ethics and doing the right thing. There is enough work out there for all of us and agents and managements are there to do a job. Like, for example, that gig where I had to go up to Darwin, I did nothing. I just made one phone call and they took care of the rest. That's what they're there for. They're there for those situations where stuff's going wrong and you need that scenario.

It was interesting when I moved to onstage, my old management and my new management and myself went to lunch and they traded me like a soccer player. My old management's like, well, okay. So the first year I would like 10% of whatever he takes for the year, plus a small trailer. And I'm like, boys, I'm right here. I am right here and I can hear you both.

They're like and now when he gets grumpy you want to get him a beer and you want to like so and what i do as well is and i'm happy to share this is i have a set fee, that my management goes out so and then if there's other bureaus because i work through all the bureaus in the country if there's another bureau in the country that wants to use me they obviously contact my management which goes through me they get their full commission right

and then my management takes a cut of their commission and left it means I'm left with less of my fee but a little, It doesn't matter what bureau's flogging me off. They're both going out at the same fee. It then comes down to relationship that they have with those clients. And B, it's a level playing field for me. Yeah, you're not getting undersold out there. I'm not getting undersold. I'm happy taking the cut that I take.

And these other people get paid accordingly for the jobs that they do rather than going through and saying hey oh i'm gonna he's he's such and such oh plus he's an extra this much it's all it's a one set fee and as josh said they they got me for the day they can use and abuse me as they feed i really like that approach and when i'm traveling to work for corporate clients that's what i encourage people to do is to book a daily rate and then i'll offer whatever

they need yeah and the other thing uh this is something else that stood out to me and I've tried to adopt this from Nigel, is when we first met, it was Nigel emceeing a gala dinner and I was booked to do the roving around the tables. And even though we're both magicians, Nigel saw me, got my business card, took a photo of it and sent it to his agent that night saying, hey, there's another magician out here.

Here's his details. And I think I got an email from your your management that same night because you actually were interested in another magician getting work, even though some people might have that closed mindset of that's going to jeopardize what I do kind of thing. If you see someone good, I'm happy to straightaway tell my management.

If I see a good band, if I'm working with a corporate band or I see another speaker, straightaway I'm on my management going, hey, you need to check out this person. Cool. And they'll ask me to check people out as well. All right. Do you have a weird story? I have. Which weird story? Two strokes, epileptic fit, 20% roll.

Oh, yeah. That was recent. That was recent. Was there actually fighting? Yeah. Give us that story. Yeah. And that was this year, I think. It's a good story. It's a good story. That's not this year. This is back in my crazy days in theater. Oh. But there was one this year you told us about. A story with violence on Pineweather, for the record. I'm trying to remember which one that was now, Josh. This was at the drinks afterwards. I think it was like a rival. Oh, my God, yes.

You can't mention any of the companies here. How am I reminding the memory guy of something you did? Shocking memory. I bet he knows all their names, though. Yeah, true. Yeah, they do. Funnily enough, the CEO of one of the companies turned up to a function I did up the coast, and I've gone, you know, Pete, how are you, mate? And I'm like, I'm not going to mention anything about what happened. So back in the theater days, so the crazies is 18 to 35-year-olds. They're to heckle and get drunk.

Brentley's, I did five years there. That was 18 to extinct. Sorry, 35 to extinct. Literally, we'd have days where they'd wheel in the aged care people and they'd eat lunch. And the owner, she'd go, oh, you're going to go on during lunch.

Whatever sure that's the trenches oh man you got these old people clunking away eating so i've gone screw this i did the needle through the arm you know harry anderson's needle through the arm yeah yeah and i've done that trick while they're eating and i'm like and i've got spit drooling from my mouth just and i'm just just right stop i'm fine you want to put me on while they're eating sure we'll do this so yeah so we're at crazy's one night and then i'm on stage and then everyone's was

appropriately named yeah oh crazy's was so much fun if we could all go back we we'd do it all again in a heartbeat it was just so much fun so i'm on stage looking and then everyone's just done this and i've done and looked over and there's these like 20 people just going for it on one of the tables and just laying into each other and i've like gone on all righty yeah like completely calm with it because it's not like the first time this has happened it's like all right folks

you want to watch the fight or should we get on with the show and they've gone yeah fight's over let's get back to the show and we went back to the show another night we did a sketch i'll tell you a good routine we did a crazy two.

This is this started out serious and ended up in a piss take we had did one night with a sketch sketch and one of the guys and it's basically a i come out and i blow up it's mining i blow up a doll and then i try to kiss the doll and so it's all inappropriate whatnot and at the end this gay guy comes running out from the stage and then i'm like ah and that's the end of the set but we've done this and then one of the guys in the audience has turned to his missus and gone hi honey i'm gay,

and i was just like oh my god i'm out oh i'm gay and like she's at the back with this crying and he's on. It was just, oh, it's a carnage of fun. And that happens every week. Every week. I did a routine at Crazies. I loved it. It was a three-ring linking ring routine, but it was all glow-in-the-dark. So I taped. So this is back in the 90s. I taped my rings with glow-in-the-dark tape.

I had white gloves on, and so these white gloves would come out, and I'd come out, and you'd have the glow-in-the-dark rings, and it was all like a minute 46 routine, all serious. It was like beautiful moves and whole thing, and then the routine. By the end of the season, this routine had turned from this beautiful, lovely, serious routine to I would come out, and then halfway through the routine, another two hands would come out.

They would undo my pants. they'd pull my pants down i'd have while in the dark y fronts on then they'd bring out this glow in the dark sheep and next minute the sheep while i'm doing this ring routine whoa so from the start of the season to the end of the season stuff had changed we'd constantly have to try to throw each other off on stage it was just so much fun another story from cans for you josh which which it's incredibly painful for me, but it's one of those stories that you do.

I went up to Cairns. I was doing a gig up there. Ended up getting violently ill, and I mean violently ill, where I am throwing up and diarrhea every 15 minutes. So I've, thank God, the event organizer I knew is a good friend. And that's the other advantage of working with management as well, is you get to learn all the PCOs, the event organizers, and they understand how you work, they like what you do, they like the ethics, and then you kind of become friends from it.

And that helps you get more work in the business. And that's probably why I don't market at all, because I have all these other connections from working in the industry over the years. But anyway, so I've done this gig. I'm violently ill. So I've grabbed Jeff. I said, Jeff, we need to talk to the client. I'm not well. I've said, look, I don't want any money for this. I'll do the show. It's gratis. That's the way it's going to be. The pool area is there. I've come down.

I've come down to do, I do one group, close up for three minutes, back to the room, throw up, diarrhea, back down again, do another group, back up to the room, throw up, come back down, do another group. And while I'm doing this, I'm learning the names as well. Oh my God. I'm back down. And then it's showtime. I've gone, right. A show's going to happen. I'm 20 minutes into the show. I've got a woman up.

I'm doing the theater sports routine with hands because I do a whole heap of other stuff as well. I'm doing theater sports. Suddenly, I throw up. I've swallowed it, and diarrhea starts coming down my legs. Shut the fuck up. And I'm dying. Oh, my God. I've gone, right, folks, we're going to have a small break. You're going to have some dessert, and we'll come back after dessert for the next part of the show.

I've gone back to my room, had a shower, cleaned my clothes, obviously throwing up more, diarrhea more, come back on, on finish the other 20 minutes like i was doing stand-up on my haunches and one minute from the crowd's going you asthmatic i got oh god i wish i was right now i've done this end up i get a standing ovation for the show not that i can remember it because jeff because i spoke to jeff the day afterwards he then i finished

the show he basically just picks me up he's just leave your shit there kez and come up and he literally literally takes me back up to the.

Room we opened the door to my room and oh my god it's rank in there gone in there we've called the ambulance and we've basically gotten me back together again i've run my management again this is like 11 o'clock at night right my management gone i'm violently ill i'm on a plane at 6 a.m it's not happening fix it so my management gang they take care of that they're on the phone to the hotel was brilliant they basically said look we've extended your stay till five in

the afternoon known yeah scotty p what a shit show you that is correct and jeff knows a lot of the other entertainers in the industry next minute i start getting text messages and emails from like phil cass scott williams going mate heard what you did champ well done so yeah it was as you started telling this gig story i'm like he's gonna have a long road to hoe to beat trig watson but i think yeah winner crazy stories to to get to go from getting a standing ovation to then calling an ambulance

is yeah just such a contrast man holy mile all the while doing names in which you were supposed to have the coolest calmest collectest mind like are you unfazed by anything. Yeah if my head gets into that into that frame of mind nick yeah nothing will throw me i did My mum died at two in the morning, and then my brother and I went and did charity work for cancer. She died of cancer.

And the next day at two o'clock that afternoon, 12 hours later, I was doing charity work for cancer because it was already booked in. And it was like, as soon as I started working, All the emotions went. It was like, I'm here to do a job. It's all about them. It's nothing about me. Get the job done. Don't worry about yourself. That's a skill in itself, a remarkable skill.

Another funny gig story for you is, and this is probably my favorite. I was doing a gig for Yellow Brick Road down at the MCG. You two boys don't know what's going to happen to you. Doug wouldn't have heard this one. It was for Yellow Brick Road. I was emceeing and doing a show for them down there. Now, for the people that don't know, the chairman is Mark Borat, who's a famous celebrity here in Australia. He's the chairman, and I had to introduce the CEO. His name is Matt.

I've introduced the CEO. He's come up today to do the welcome speech. I've walked off stage, mic in hand, and so the mic's here, and I've just put, like I normally do, I've just put my hands behind my back as I normally do, sitting off stage waiting for him to finish his speech.

And then the next minute you hear over over the speakers this because i had to let one rip, so and i put the mic behind my thing i and i hear this sound going oh jesus i ripped the mic out to the front because the sound boys had forgotten to drop me from the booth so this fart has gone on through the speakers the audience starts starts chuckling away i'm at the side stage going oh that's that's funny um and now in true typical form rather than owning the situation i've walked

back up on stage to back announce him and do the next thing and i've gone. They literally stitched him up completely and then straight away as soon as i finished i've I've rung my manager and gone, you're not going to believe what I just did. Oh, man. That's funny. It's pretty funny. Wow. Slow clap for that one. That's a slow clap. God damn it. It reminds me of all those jokes about Taylor Swift.

The way she holds her microphone, she kind of holds it down at her side or her butt crack while she looks at the audience. And it's just like, she's totally fighting into that microphone. She's totally fighting into that microphone. Far out. Hey, we had a question from Christopher Wayne. He wanted to ask Nige, how does it feel going from being a corporate guy to now sort of moving towards a guy that sells tickets and plays for a theater audience every week?

That is an excellent question. To answer your question, I love it. I love the theater of magic. That is my passion. I am very lucky that I get to work with Josh and Chris. Two of my favorite guys, two of my best mates. Like when I left theater, it was like literally, that's all I want to do. I just want to get back into a theater again. And I've seized the opportunity here to do the things. You know how you do something and then you go, oh, I regret. I should have done that a little bit more.

And now that what we've set up, and honestly, the three of us, I think what we've set up here is really special. We're ticking all the right boxes. and it's, like I say, it's not just a show, it's an experience. And that's our goal. That's our value that we want to deliver to our clients. So we'll do the little extra things. We'll have a box of chocolates there for them if they've come along the second time. We'll try to remember who they were, who they saw, how their kids are going.

One guy comes in, he loves looking at the maps in the map room. So it's like, oh, Steve, you can go check out those maps over here. There's some new ones over here this time.

Just remembering those little nuances makes people feel special it's having said that from a corporate perspective to a theater of magic perspective it is so much easier to perform the people are there to see you perform in a corporate setting they're not necessarily there to see you perform you have to be on your a game when you're in a corporate world.

That's the difference of all time right there people coming to see magic like that's the dream scene that rarely happens for professional magicians it's so nice that we're seeing these venues pop up not just like yours but around the world where people are showing that they want this and hopefully it will continue it's a great intimate form of theater how many seats do y'all have 40 40 is what we set for so i love that number i think it's a great number it makes people

feel part of the show they're not watching that's how like hoffsens are used to do it and who dan you know you would come into the salon and witness there is no bad seats either like every seat's wonderful and you know the amount of cross-checking that nige does before each show to ensure that all All the sight lines are what they're supposed to be. You, I know you want it to be an experience and I can say from someone who performed there not too long ago, it, it really is.

What's Chris, I can run your artistic brain cares and just do it. Yeah. The current theme I've heard is that you genuinely care about the experience you provide for the people who watch you. And sometimes maybe magicians get self self-absorbed with the things they want to showcase and don't care as much about the, as the people they're showcasing it to. When in fact that needs to be the focus always. Yeah. It comes back to that comment. I said, it's not about you. It's about them.

Yeah. And you know what? I think that ethos, I, my dream for you guys, if I may, like, I think it would be amazing to have like, Theater of Magic Brisbane, Theater of Magic Sydney, Theater of Magic Perth, Theater of Magic New York. I mean, I just believe it belongs everywhere with the way you guys are doing it. You know what I mean? I really hope in the years to come that it does really expand everywhere. Everyone needs to experience it. Well, I'm glad you say that,

Nick. Stay tuned for Theater of Magic Melbourne. Yeah, boy. Yep. Now, something else that would be, I think, really valuable for the listeners, because Nigel has had quite a successful career in magic and all his businesses and stuff he's been doing, he's actually set himself up to be able to retire from doing this stuff if he wants to.

Like, you know, I won't go into all your portfolios and stuff, but he, you know, owns multiple properties and things like that because he's had a successful career and doing what he loves doing. Right. What advice do you have to magicians? What do you have to magicians that are currently working of how they should start thinking about when they want to not have to be running to every single gig?

Gig. You mentioned something to me about how we don't think about it, but we should be putting our own super aside and little things like that. What a great topic. Let's hear it.

First step, let's say you get $1,000 for a gig. First thing that you grab 10% of that before tax is taken out, 10% goes into what's called savings, long-term savings. That could be either super superannuation or long-term savings, and it is never, ever touched. You then grab another 10% and it goes into what's called a mojo account, which is an emergency account. That's your emergency money. Once again, doesn't get touched, but it's used for emergencies.

Washing machine breaks down, need a new fridge, car maintenance, that type of big expense items because that'll build up over the years. But that savings thing never gets touched. I'm very lucky that my partner, she takes care of all that. If I was left with the money, I'd spend it willy-nilly like you wouldn't believe. Leave, but she's like, no, no, no. This is what happens. This money's going here. This money goes here. So 10% goes to here.

10% goes to the mojo. You then take 30% goes into tax. So that leaves you, that's 50. So half the money's already gone. Okay. The other half, that other 50%, you can grab 10% goes into entertaining myself. So that could be a takeaway meal, going to the movies, that type of thing. That other 40% after bills, groceries, et cetera.

And then that's the way you set it up so if you earn a thousand dollars at a gig you're actually only earning four hundred dollars because everything just became my financial advisor now having said that i actually have to quote this is not financial advice you may go see your financial advisor just say that it's well you're my lawyer too that's awesome i did my finance qualifications you have to actually declare that this is not financial advice.

That's beautiful part of my other world, Now, just on your other world, you have a title for that other world, Quantum. I am a, okay, so for the listeners out there, I also, not only do I do my corporate. This is crazy, yeah. I do my corporates, obviously do Theatre of Magic, which is about, for me, I think for all of us, it's about 20 hours a week, Josh, isn't it, that we all spend? Probably, yeah. At least. At least. So, and I also, I have for the last 30 years

also worked full-time. I have three degrees. I have a Bachelor of Mathematics, a Master's of IT, and a Master's of Finance. I am what's called a quantitative analyst, so nerd, mathematician. I build mathematical model to help. I work in a dealing floor, and I build mathematical models to help people trade or make better business decisions when trading.

He's so clever that when he's so clever that when he started working with his management for corporate entertainment he looked at their system and went i can build that better and you didn't you build their website or their booking systeming and yeah they're on stage entertainment their booking system i actually built it for them program you get all the work yeah and then He just tweets the algorithm to send all the inquiries. He's booking himself now. Yeah, that's it.

So I do a lot of things. I don't sleep. Wait, we haven't talked memorized deck. Do you use one? If so, what? And do you want to talk about it? No. The answer is no, I don't do it. I use the mnemonic one that Josh uses as well. But I don't use the memorized deck for some reason. I just he doesn't use it but he just knows it like we'll be doing a routine yeah the next card in my routine can you do the deck can you memorize one on the fly is that something you've tried no no,

So that, sorry, let me rephrase that for you, Doug. Yes, I can do it. I will need time to practice it and learn it. It's like everything. It's like every skill. Right. It's like learning a double lift, you know, doing a pharaoh, doing whatever coin move you want to do on muscle palm. Great answer. You want to, it's just a bit of hard work and job done. Yeah. Yeah. And in saying all of this stuff, his magic is really great. Like, you know, great Zaro shuffles, great routine-ing.

You've got the funniest Bill and Lemon routine I've ever seen. That Bill and Lemon routine, I built that at Brantley's. Now, you've seen how I work now, Josh, because the Theatre of Magic, what I love about the Theatre of Magic is it's an opportunity for us to really hone our shows. Like, I've come up with 20 minutes' worth of new material since the last seven months, and I have honed other parts to my show.

I've got a lot more callbacks now. And the reason I've honed it is A, because of Chris and Josh, because we will sit down and I'll listen to the boys. And Chris will go, why don't you try this? And I'll go, sure, I'll give it a crack. And Josh will go, well, why don't you do this? And I go, sure, I'll give it a crack. My favorite part is I do the Cody Fisher book test. And then I moved from that into the Sean Farquhar's.

Sherlock Holmes routine. But at the start of the Cody Fisher one, it's like, oh, any word, any word, and you pull out the dictionary and they can get that gag. Josh has gone, wouldn't it be great if we could bring that back later on? And I went, that's a good idea. And then Josh says, why don't you use a billet? I went, okay, yeah, let's do that. So then we've done a billet switch for it. So we've got this jar. And then Chris has gone, why don't you walk on with the jar?

So we're doing all different ideas that slowly develop it more and more. And then just the method that I've come up to come up with to get the word on this piece of paper is so bold, but apparently it, you don't see it.

Yeah, it's frying. So if, if, if everyone listening, basically what it's gone from is the start of a book test extravaganza routine is saying name any word. And I've, I can tell you, I've got it written down in my case here and they They say any word. And then the joke is, well, here's a dictionary. It's probably in there somewhere. And that was just where he left that.

But now we've built up this routine where now that word that's said as a joke is then revealed impossibly in this glass jar that we foreshadowed by bringing out and sitting down at the start of the show. It's a piece of theater is what it is. And then the lemon routine, the money, I switched back to a five.

That money then comes back again wrapped up inside the paper so not only do you have the word there but you also have the note from earlier in the show coming back so it's a call back again to that and like the insurance routine I grabbed a routine with the insurance policy which I've altered. Again, to quickly hand out the insurance policy at the end rather than having not to hand it out.

People are just going to have to come and see it. Now, Nigel doesn't have your typical social media pipes, but he is on the Instagram. So if fellow magicians want to reach out to you, is that the best place to do that? Okay, you're going to have to tell me. You're going to have to teach me what I need to look for. I'll just keep an eye on messages then. Sure. Done.

So hit him up on instagram message send my message there because i know you're able you know how to share stuff on there so you probably can click a few buttons i'm gonna go sure some to be honest sometimes i don't know josh i just go yeah or just ask me and i'll put you in touch with nigel you can do that too but look we're gonna end thank you so much man for coming on i you know i'm i'm so privileged to get to spend time with nigel

every single week at the theater of magic you know we share many of farts at the theater and um you know i forget how many gold nuggets he has to share with the magic world so we're gonna obviously have to have him come back again but we're gonna end the episode like we do every time with the final word uh first of all thanks boys for having me on my final word is this is something i wrote when i was at crazies when I obviously started in becoming really professional

at what I do and when I started Names.

And it goes like this. It's I dream of something that is impossible, and when I have achieved it, I dream some more. That's it. Thanks very much.