YouSaid · the spoken record

Apollo Robbins

lines on the record: 230
first: 2023-10-19
most recent: 2023-10-19
sittings or episodes: 1
sources: podcast

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“Yeah, because they had done background checks on all of us. And he said, there'll be photo ops as he goes through the show. He's got a small party with him. But the whole theater is just going to be sectioned off for that. They have Secret Service. We'll be here, so don't be alarmed, but they'll be stationed throughout the casino and throughout the theater. And then we were all departing. And he said, but Apollo, they asked you not to meet the president, not to shake his hand. They wanted to get in the news if you were to steal from him. And everybody just kind of laughed. And I went back to him and said, that's not bad. I'd like a picture with the president. It was Jimmy Carter at that time. Not that I was in the era of Jeremy Carter. He was an ex-president at that time. He was on a tour book tour.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So about probably near the end, about three years after I've been performing at Caesar's Palace, there was a special night we might come into work and they had a big meeting before the show. And the manager said we have previous president of the United States coming in to visit, and we are going to have some people go home that haven't had background checks.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So at that time, I had been there, and I'll give you more context. So when I was performing, it was a specific role at the beginning of the show. 24 people would go into a certain area and they'd be there for 10 minutes before they went on to the next part of the show. During that time, I would steal from four people and pass their items off for the function in the show. And one person then I would bring up front, steal all of his stuff while everybody's watching and give it back and then later everybody would find it and comes back to them later. I would do that every 10 minutes, six times an hour, five hours a night, five nights a week for five years. So some math is somewhere around 200,000 people plus my side gigs that it became a lab for me to experiment. Can I take someone's glasses while they're wearing them? And what does that do? Is it possible? Can I steal their belt? What are the boundaries? And that was a place for me to experiment.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And if they say yes, but that was the first time I had ever seen that happen. When I had studied the history of theatrical pickpocketing and other thing, there wasn't that open challenge that beware, this is about to happen. If you engage, that's the game we're going to play. Are you ready? But it now meant a whole different thing. But it came from all those concerns and lawsuits and everything. I'll say it almost happened. Never landed. But now I develop this style that was a very different style, very potent style. But instead of surprise, it was suspense.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I started making my own set of rules and it changed one big thing in my style, which was all right, I want to treat this like a vampire. I'm going to tell them. Vampires had to be introduced into the household across the country.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“In the space I was playing, it was accusations law enforcement, lawsuits, and I was constantly doing with that. I learned certain rules. Don't steal from someone who's been drinking. Don't steal from someone who has Alzheimer's or any potential for that because that's a really hard one to fight your way out of if they believe they had something they didn't.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or maybe I have, yes. But it was in a social context of entertainment, right? Right, right. Yeah. But still, that's a different thing than if you mess up on a magic trick. If you mess up on a magic trick, they caught you, look, I understand how your trick works.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But I think it may also helped. It wasn't just an apology. It helped me secure a job there beyond filling in for a friend. I got it for five years. So that five years came from how I handled that situation. And over that time, I had people grab my throat, pull out a gun one time, pull out knives.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And he said, give us the rings. I said, Do you really believe that I have your rings, or are you joking? And he says, no, give us the rings. And he said, we're going to the police. And they started to leave. And I said, stop, don't walk away. He goes, what? I said, if you walk away right now, you'll never know if I have your rings, because I could hide them anywhere. But I want you to know that I don't. So I'm going to walk in front of you. I'm going to keep my hands out to the side. You watch me, we're going to walk the police together. So we walked out in the casino. We went to security, and I got strip searched. And his wife went up, she was very dramatic, which to me conveyed that she was sincere about her belief, that she really believed that that happened. So then she, up in her room, found her ring sitting on a sink and she'd been washing her hands.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes. So that's my career has been. Majority of those, right? My first day after I had left my job as a designer, I'd come over to work at Caesar Palace, I was accused of stealing this lady's rings. I was doing a performance in front of a group and she said, my rings. And her husband said, where'd they go? And she says, somebody stole them. I hadn't even touched her. And I said, what did you have? And she goes, I had diamonds and rubies and emeralds. Oh, my. And I just said, oh, I must have sent them as a child support payment. I just turned it as a joke.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Because I got a lot of pressure at that moment. So I was performing with him another gentleman, and then I said, Oh, and here's your watch. And he's shocked that I have his watch. And before he even processed, I pulled out the other piece of his watch and gave him the second piece of it, which was a leather band. And I said, see that lady over there? He goes, yeah, that lady? I said, yeah, see her watch. Said, I'm going to let you see it a second time. This time I went to her watch. I'm going to try to do it without breaking it. Now that's a lot harder, but I'm going to try to see if it's possible. He goes, no, you can't do that. And I was gambling on the idea that he didn't need the money. He probably knew that he needed to replace this band. But I'm reframing it that, hey, that's a whole nother level. You guys want to try it? Let's move past this idea that I just broke his watch.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I could feel my ears turning red. And I just was running through the game. Do I give this back to him? Which is more important.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Kind of, yeah. If they're going to hire me back again. And so I walk up to somebody that was important, they brought this big VIP up to me right away. And as I go to Steel's watch, his watch band was very worn out and it snapped in two pieces while I was stealing it.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“These are agents that hire for entertainment in Las Vegas. And they were watching and they were trying to vet if I was a good fit. And the first guy.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, as a brand. I'll give you just paint a picture of it's a fascinating thing. My first show I ever did in Las Vegas, separate from Caesars, was just a corporate event for a large corporation. And it was a red carpet event that limousines pulling in. It was very different from Missouri boy when I first moved out there. And these agents said, so all right, go steal things from people, I guess. And they gave me $100 poker chips to give to people as gifts. I went up to this guy and the agent was watching, and the first time I tried to steal.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, and I knew I could make an impact. And the big skill I had that was unique when I came to Vegas, I decided let's just drop the other stuff and just focus on the stealing. Because at that point, there was one other guy who was really good, two other guys that were in that space. One of them had passed away. He was a friend. And he worked at that place. And so it was a good angle for me to explore further.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I've been doing it professionally at the same time. So even back in my hometown, I had contracts with, I did restaurants, I did nightclubs. I had 15 different contracts per week.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Or dodge something. They dodge all their severance. And that made it Yeah, yeah, and that made an impact on me. So they had just given me a bonus. They just gave me a raise. That was the context at that time that he said that, well, why are you here? And it wasn't about the money for me. And it was that moment of, yeah, what would happen if I did this thing? I don't know how, but let me just clean this late on this thing and see what happens. And coincidences, I still believe, happen. And that weekend, a friend of mine said, hey, I'm going on tour for a couple of weeks. And there's a show called Caesar's Magical Empire. And I was wondering if you can come fill in for me for those two weeks starting on Tuesday. Perfect timing. Sounds great. I'll give that.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“But they found a way to get around their contract so they outsource them to another company and then let that company fire them.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“So I went back into my job and I gave my notice that day. And that was a Friday That was a big point because that was a jumping point, right? And it had a context in that I was a senior designer at that time and the company I was working for and the reason why I didn't say their name, they had let off a large production team that supported the graphics that I did. I'd hand my designs to them. They would port them across to bigger things.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Did you quit your job as an artist and become a magician or performer full time? And it was because a hypnotist told you during a lunch break. I thought that was a great idea”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which I put underneath the talent. They had low business sense, maybe, or their ambition to take that effort to the next place. And the combination of those were atrophied in different areas. And I felt like even if I don't have the same skill level, I can bring some of that back or find other angles. And so I decided to move out to Las Vegas and to try to go after that. And then I'm jumping through a timeline real quick, but I was initially working at doing a couple design jobs. And my second one was for a series of slot machine design designing the animation sequences for slot machines and doing all the illustrations for that. And I was doing freelance artwork for a hypnotist named Justin Trans. And I was designing all this stuff. And he said, why are you here? He says, for a couple years, you've been in this work, little place, and you're doing freelance artwork for me. He said, but you're performing capabilities, you could do something else. I said, what's a good reason? Give me one good reason. He says, wouldn't it be amazing stories sometime later in your life if people said, why?”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Which was perfect for me because I love working for it. And I formed a model real quick. I looked at all the magicians that were around me and I recognized that they blew me away. They had exceptional skills, things I didn't know were possible, but they didn't have everything. They either had high skill.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“He picked me up at the airport. He drove me straight downtown into a gambling spot, and he was a gambler. He showed me that world. And he said, Vegas has everything to offer, but it will give you nothing.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Was 18. So I was married, I had a son who now I have two kids. I have a son who's 30 and a daughter who's six. So fascinating two different worlds. But at that time, I had to provide for my family. And I had two careers that I could do simultaneously the design aspect of that and then moonlighting with the magic style and comedy clubs and things. So I was doing both those in high school, but then I was transitioning into doing that full time by the time both of those simultaneously as I graduated high school. And there was a gentleman who was a touring magician from Las Vegas came through town and he saw me performing. And he said, you should go to Vegas. I said, yeah, that's what everybody says. And he says, come visit me. I said, I've never flown on a plane before. I don't even know what it's like outside of like Missouri. And he says, come. And I flew to Vegas to visit this guy. His name was Darryl, Martinez. They call him the magician's magician.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I'm so fortunate to have had some incredible people influence me along the way. And I've kind of surfed through my career from person to person that's made an impact on me. But there's one I'd say that makes the most impact, which is my wife. I'll circle back to her because she's probably the biggest. But at that time, when I was in Las Vegas, I was married when I was young. And so it was my first wife.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, put him in a frame, as you would say on the street. So I could put him in a frame that I didn't need other people, a team of thieves to help me. I could do it by myself, and I could use certain things that would draw, I noticed from animation, because of that, there were certain motions that drew attention in that later became a thing too.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a great book called The Illusion of Life by a Disney's, what do you call them his nine men, but it talks about the illusion of life, how to create in just frame by frame when you're hand drawing, how to create life motion. And one of those is secondary actions and what they call slowing in and slowing out, something moving at the top of a curve, how it will have more frames versus on the bottom of a curve. And I started realizing there was overlaps in relationships of that to Aikido. When you study Aikido, there are certain half moves and half circles. And so when I started blending those together with sleight of hand, I realized I could lock people in a dance when you're doing a cross body lead. How does somebody know that you have a lead and how do you transfer that with your hands? So by putting those together, I started to see that I could manipulate a person's body and tell them a story that they wouldn't register consciously. And I could lock up their body without them knowing that I had kind of locked up the mechanics.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I had one skill set, which outside of magic I could steal things that I could blend in. And there's a few factors also. I states a little bit martial arts. I had some understanding of animation and all of them kind of sell together to create a style that I developed.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“What's been happening this year, Nick? It sounds like you've had some problems with your friend. We want to talk about it. And he would say these things and just know so much about someone. And he was minimalists as well, not to also throw off that he had an inner ear microphone as ear and the parents had the other side of it, but he had this great book of Latin that was Santa's book and it was all carved out of leather with this beautiful book. And he would tell anybody about anything about themselves, but through the auspice of Santa Claus. And I just love this beautiful approach that it wasn't so much of what I saw magicians initially getting into magic for was to fill a hole in themselves. They were hiding behind what they were doing. They're trying to get this validation from somewhere and they needed attention. And that wasn't the driver for me. I was trying to figure out, is there something here I can create sparks in people and experience like that guy did in my second grade when he came in as repairing the window or the Santa Claus? So I think it started to shape that.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yes, he lifted all year, right? So, anybody who saw him. But when you'd see him. In a You see people go up and a kid sits on Santa Claus, but what would be effective with him is a 12 year old would say at Santa Claus. And he says, it's good to see a nick.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“To read three books that have influenced me to this day of a very structured analytical approach for performance that I needed, but also for the psychology of magic and understanding how an illusion is constructed in the audience's mind. And I needed that at fifteen because I wasn't thinking about that. And so that was the biggest thing I would say. There were many other people that from that time period, a gentleman named Ed Dillard, who was a year-round Santa Claus who did amazing things. He would go into a mall and he created experiences. That was a great thing because...”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It is, yes, but Ben was a mentor. He wasn't with the club, but Ben did some things. He did one thing. There was a magician I really admired who helped me on the business side named Mark Sparks, who was a traveling performer who was brilliant. And I'd seen him make a coin fly up from one hand to another. And anything I could try to excuse or sleight of hand didn't make sense of why that could happen. And other books I'd read, it didn't make sense of why that could happen. So I went back to Ben Stone in that shop called Mysteries Magic Shop. I said, Ben, what is with this coin? I think it's this. Here's my hypothesis one, two, three. And he goes, ah, well, that's obviously Dariel Fitzki. It said Fitzki. And I said, I don't know. That's not my radar. And he says, well, Fitzki wrote three books. It's a trilogy. Go read that. And so I picked up one of the books, Magic by Misdirection on the Psychology of Magic. I read it. It was a hard read. And I came back and I said, Biff, it wasn't in there. And he says, well, he wrote two other books, The Trick Brain and Shumanship for Magicians. So I read all those and came back and said, it wasn't in any of those.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“And I think that that's what they were suffering from at that time. You have this energy, you read my books and teach it back to me.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah. And they said, well, if you could get through that book that you first read, why don't you take these other books and learn some of those things? Because there's this great quote. I don't know who it's attributed to, but when we buy books, we think we're buying the time to read them. I feel it's”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Is this collision of two different mindsets, which has changed me for the better? But at that time, I didn't want to start until I knew, until I met the audience, is like, let's create this together. Because I thought there was a value in creating. And to me, early on in magic, that's what I was trying to do too. Because all the books said I had to do this in phase one, then phase two, then phase three. It's like, I get that.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, jump off the cliff and build a play on the way down. But yes, the turtle is a great metaphor for that. But it was, I mean, the first time I did a show with my wife and initially we had this separate tension to go down, but we were walking to go on stage and there was a certain skill set we learned with each other. And she said, but what's the structure for the show? I said, I don't know. I haven't met the audience yet. And I didn't.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“No, it's a different thing. So if you think of a lot of performance magic, it is very sheet music based, very classical. It's very structured. There's a lot of geometry in the sight lines and the calculations of that. There's very precise scripting of what's going on. My style has always been very jazz-based, to a fault in many ways, but that I would feel constricted by any script. So for me, as soon as I had an idea, my landscape was to try it with an audience immediately before I'd even try tested it out.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, it was nice. And I also learned early there that even though I learned some things wrong by their interpretation, it created a new thing. And they said, well, that wasn't what they meant. I was like, oh, that's great. So what did they mean?”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think there's a variety of ways, but if you think about card magic when you see magician pick a card, where did that come from? It came from at one point some card mechanics or card sharps that treated cards some of that filtered across and made it into the entertainment world. And there's this other category of a lot of those from thieves and things factored into magic. There's an interesting genealogy there, I think, but mentalism came from psychics and mediums. And that category was this impersonation that I have some type of exceptional ability to read minds, influence, predict the future, talk to the dead, whatever it might be. The different label is that as a camp, mentalists usually will not claim that they have real powers. They'll say that they're doing it under the flag of entertainment versus psychics and mediums who often use the same tools will sometimes convey that they have those powers.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Allowing them to play a game of darts, but you're painting the bullseye on the wall after the dart is landed. And yet they don't realize that. They feel with conviction that that was all choices that they made, that they navigated to. And that takes a fluidity of thought. There's little feedback loops that people, you kind of blend in the segues and people don't notice those. And the way you use your words.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It hit me over the head, and later I found that that plastic thumb that I found was a gift to my parents from him. So later I went back to try to find him. I found his widow. And she told me about this magic club that was in my hometown. And when I showed up, they said, oh, you're new to magic. And then I started doing some things. And they said, why can you do that? There's two things I could do. I could manipulate coins, make them appear, disappear small objects like that. And I could do what's called equivoke, an influence of a series of choices that I learned early on when I was eight from some book, but I had used it over the years and I could do that, which is a category of minimalism that is jazz-based.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was trying to find a magician I had seen when I was like seven. And there was a guy that I thought he was a magician, but I didn't realize it was a magician quite at the time. And when I was like second grade, this guy had come through my school. And it was just an announcement from the principal that called the teacher out of the room. And there's this guy working on the window. He was in overalls. And he was working on the window and he asked one of the kids to help measure a rope. And then he cut the rope and it went back together. It wasn't a show. It was just these magical things were happening from this old guy that was fixing the window. And then everything came out of his toolbox they was trying to use was doing some weird thing. But it wasn't a magic show. It wasn't presented in that social contract.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I think that influenced my style of magic too, because very quickly I would take traditional magic effects and things that would be called like a impossible location where something disappears from myself and appears somewhere else. I said, well, why doesn't it appear on someone else? What else can I do with that? So I started developing a lot of that too.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Well, he recognized me from my family. I live close by. And he came up to talk to me, and I didn't want to be found with him. And I think he saw me do something. So he went to check me. It was an interesting thing just by instinct. I didn't put them on any kind of pocket on me. I had left them underneath my arm facing out the back. So as he's checking my pockets, I reach around behind my back with my right hand. I remove the cigarettes from there and I load them in his apron that was on him. So he definitely wasn't going to look there. And I left and I got away, but later he's going to find those cigarettes in his apron”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“There was a group, you call them hobos back in the day, but there was a group of people that lived out behind some of the grocery stores, and they knew sometimes when I run away from home, I'd go stay with them, and sometimes they would need food or they would need other things or cigarettes or other things like that. And one time when I went in, I stole some cigarettes. I didn't smoke, but stole some cigarettes. And the guy kind of recognized me. And he came up to talk to me.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Yeah, which is a fun combination. The book was a dense read. And I think it helps me, though. But now when people try to learn from magic, they try to learn it without mentors and from YouTube videos where they don't have to deal with people. And so you don't have to do the perspective taking and the management of a person in the same way when you're first learning it. You're just learning it to fool a camera through a certain angle and you only have to do it once. So it's a different thing. And at that time when I was reading from a book, I didn't have a mentor. I was reading this dense copy that described how something was supposed to look magical. I was trying to transfer that into an idea and doing that in front of a mirror. And I started to find ways to do it, whether they were the way the book intended or not. But what I had at my disposal, I think, is also because I had been exposed to my brothers stealing things and other things, it allowed me to have a perspective that I didn't have the same baseline.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“I was always kind of full forced in whatever I did. Yeah. And I think that that's part of it, that sometimes when we're trying to get to a place and we just feel like we need to get to that place, we can change the vehicle. We just know that we're on that journey. And that's often what it was. I knew I was getting out of where I was. And that was a big thing for me is getting out of the place where I was growing up.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“It was an outdoor enclosure that was chain and fenced in with some options for it to go inside that could work for it. Yeah. But I had to build a lot of those. My mom had a background in farm, so she taught me how to build a lot of those. I lived in the city, but we had a strange backyard, strange house.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT
“Had a habitat that I was using for the raccoons that was square footage large enough to let them move in Rome. Like a shed.”
2023-10-19 · The Tim Ferriss Show · #699: Apollo Robbins, The World’s Most Famous Pickpocket — Pickpocketing the Secret Service, Manipulating Attention, Famous Con Artists, The Psychology of Deception, Self-Defense Techniques, The Secret Language of Thieves, and More · IDENTIFIED FROM THE TRANSCRIPT