Magic Meets Marketing: Why You Need THIS Skill | Rokas Bernatonis DSH #654

Faster, higher, more accurate.

So now I can cut a celery, a cucumber by throwing a plain car.

Are you serious?

Yeah.

Dude, I gotta see that in person.

Oh, yeah, we can do that.

Really?

Wow, I wish I knew.

I would have brought some celery or something.

That is so cool, man.

I can cut your salary in half.

Oh, my God.

Such a terrible joke.

I thought it would be funny.

What?

Oh, that's cool.

Took me a minute.

I got you.

I got you.

All right, guys.

We got Rockets here today.

We got a magician.

We're in Vegas.

Welcome, man.

Thank you.

Are you coming off a show performance last night?

I was opening for Penn and Teller.

Ooh.

Penn and Teller.

That's amazing.

Yeah.

And I know you go way back with them.

You got some history with them, right?

You originally fooled them a long time ago.

Yeah, the first time I was on the show was 2016.

It was,

I, I don't remember how old I was.

If I had to guess, I was like 24 years old.

I was just

finished school, like college.

I still live in Lithuania.

I was in Lithuania.

I remember

I filmed a trick and I sent it to them.

And they're like, yeah, we want to see you on the show.

Dude, like it was one week before the show, I couldn't sleep.

I couldn't eat.

I couldn't take a shower.

I was just so stressed.

Wow.

My English was like, my English, I hope you can understand me, but my English back then was my whole show, I just memorized.

I had no room for improvisation.

I was just so scared.

So, in 2016, I went on the show.

I did pretty well.

I got really good

feedback from them, but I didn't fool them.

And I always felt like, oh, I wish I fooled them.

I really wanted to fool them.

So this time,

because I'm a car thrower, so me and my friend Rixme Jr., who's a car thrower from Cleveland, Ohio.

Yeah.

We combined the power of two of the greatest car throwers in the world and we fooled them back in 2022.

Wow, that's incredible.

And now yesterday we opened for them.

Everything comes full circle, right?

Yeah.

So it was just great to perform at the Rio with them and be in the green room, talk to them.

That's amazing.

So you have the best job in the world.

Yeah, that's a fun job, right?

Yeah.

Yeah.

I see them on the billboards all the time.

Yeah.

How often do they get fooled?

I don't know.

I don't watch the show anymore.

I'm just too busy performing.

Honestly, I watch like the best of the best of the best ones because

my friends are sending me the links.

They're like, oh, this, you have to see this one.

You have to see this one.

So, but if I had to guess, maybe 10%,

5% of magicians fool them.

But it's not that easy to get on the show because they're looking for something that is

extremely original.

Right.

Yeah.

Because they've seen everything at this point.

The show's been around for so many years.

Yeah.

And a lot of, I noticed a lot of magic tricks are pretty similar, actually.

It's very rare to see unique magic these days because of social media.

Yeah.

I was about to do a trick for you, but I just changed my mind.

I've probably seen it already, right?

Yeah.

Well, now they expose how they do the tricks on social media.

So you really have to be doing something that is kind of rare.

It is.

And you know what?

To develop magic, it takes years and years and years.

And it kind of feels like social media is not, it's social media, it's not even documentation, it's like the present.

You know what I'm saying?

I'm saying

you can upload one video and then the next day people are watching a second video.

People don't come back to see your content anymore.

So you have to, if you know, being creative, it takes a lot of time.

And if you're developing one trick a year or two years, and then it's just like for one or two days.

So yeah, that's why a lot of magic that you see is not original because it's already been done and then yeah, that must suck working a year on a trick and then you get no views.

Right.

That's crazy.

So the easy way to do

to solve this is don't do it for the views.

That's why I love theater magic to be honest.

I see that social media and and photos and all of the content that I'm making producing online is just to

get like real gigs, real shows, because this is where when people really enjoy magic.

right and sometimes I do close up magic and people take out their phones and I'm like put it down guys relax just enjoy the moment yeah a lot of shows won't let you use phones anymore no I saw Kevin Hart in Dubai four weeks ago I was so surprised on the entrance they put your phone in the back and they lock your phone so you have no access to your phone zero access So you enter the arena, no phone.

You can't, you're waiting for his show for one hour.

You're just sitting.

As a B2B marketer, you know how noisy the ad space can be.

If your message isn't targeted to the right audience, it just disappears into the noise.

With LinkedIn Ads, you could precisely reach the professionals who are more likely to find your ad relevant with LinkedIn targeting capabilities.

You can reach them by job title, industry, company, and more.

Stand out with LinkedIn Ads and start converting your B2B audience into high-quality leads today.

LinkedIn Ads allows you to build the right relationships, drive results, and reach your customers in a respectful environment.

You'll have direct access to and build relationships with decision makers.

A billion members are on their platform, 180 million senior level executives and 10 million C-level executives.

You'll be able to drive results with targeting and measurement tools built specifically for B2B in technology.

LinkedIn generated 2-5x higher return on ad spend than any other social media platform, and you'll work with a partner who respects the B2B world you operate in.

79% of B2B content marketers said LinkedIn produces the best results for paid media.

LinkedIn has been a great platform for me to also find interesting podcast guests.

If you're interested, start converting converting your B2B audience into high-quality leads today.

We'll give you $100 credit on your next campaign.

Go to linkedin.com slash social to claim your credit.

That's linkedin.com slash social.

Terms and conditions apply.

LinkedIn, the place to be.

I was just by myself.

Yeah.

I had to talk to people around me.

And it felt so nice.

You see people just like being bored.

And it felt like, oh my God, it was.

Kevin Hart show was amazing.

Waiting for the Kevin Hart show was even more amazing man It was just so beautiful Yeah nobody was taking pictures Everybody was just enjoying it and after the show people were talking to each other I felt felt so special That's how it was back in the old days, right?

I missed that.

Yeah, I'm I had to do that out here for Dave Chappelle too.

Yeah, those bags you couldn't even open.

Oh, right.

Yeah, they tried when I got in to open the phone.

Uh-huh.

No, that's you tried to open?

Yeah, some good technology.

Why did you want to open?

You wanted to check your socials?

Are you?

Yeah, I am.

Are you scrolling right now?

Not now, but I looked at my screen time.

I spend like five hours a day on my phone.

That's, you know what?

That's good.

You think so?

I think, because five hours a day, but it's like, that's work, right?

Mainly, yeah.

I'd say 80% of it is work.

Well, so that's a lot of people spend like seven, eight hours for entertainment.

That's true.

If you're working on it, I guess it's not as bad.

Because you're telling like it's five hours, but if you check the details, like how many times,

how many minutes of that you're messaging your friend, like yeah or texting yeah I'm not texting just casually ever yeah yeah it's only business I mean that's kind of extreme but yeah I don't really just send texts to talk to people yeah

unless it's like an old friend I'm trying to catch up with yeah of course I'm not asking my friend how your day was do you do you call uh I'll call my mom okay yeah that's about it to ask how do you do you miss that do you do you think like that

uh what miss like personal life stuff um

no i'm just so lasered in on my mission right now of this podcast that I know I'm putting that to the side a little bit, but I still balance it on the weekends.

Yeah.

You know, but I used to work seven days a week.

I'm sure I used to do that too for magic.

Yeah, you have to do it.

And honestly, I love it because I'm so passionate about it.

I don't care.

You know, like it's not some people are like, oh, you need to take a break.

I'm like, no.

Yeah.

Because I like it so much.

Right.

And that's hard to find for people that genuine passion that they can monetize to the point you're at now.

But the first years, you probably didn't make money, right?

Oh, no, the first like seven years, but I was not.

I started when I was I started, I got into magic when I was 14 years old.

13 and 14 years old.

I started,

I tried to make money when I was 19.

So from zero money to like a little money, it was like three, four years.

But also, I didn't know, you know, like if I had the knowledge I have now, that would be like probably six months.

Yeah.

to I mean, even a month to get somewhere, but I just had no idea.

So you're learning everything at the same time and it can be overwhelming.

Yeah, and you were in Lithuania, right?

Yeah.

So that's probably a different type of culture.

Were they big on social media over there?

So I'm 31 years old.

That was 10 years ago.

Okay.

When I started, it was Facebook was the main platform for social media.

And I was pretty, I was always into social media.

I always liked that.

And I would just write posts.

You you know, I would do pictures, posts.

So yeah, social media is big there.

It was big there.

Okay.

What was your first viral video that blew up?

Was it a car throwing trick?

No, actually, and I'm very proud of myself because I was 19 years old and I created a viral video.

It felt like it was filmed accidentally.

So

This is what happened.

I'm driving a car.

My friend is sitting next to me and she's like, hey, Rakus, what are you doing?

I'm saying, hey, you know, just on my way to a corporate gig,

you know, just

yeah, but I feel like I need to do a little trick, you know, to warm up, just to get in the mood.

She's like, okay, you can do it now.

And then I exit the car, go in front of it, start doing magic tricks, and a police

like pulls up from behind me.

And the video stops.

And it was before you could see the views on Facebook, but it it was like 14,000 likes.

And it was in Lithuanian.

The population of Lithuania is 3 million people.

Not even that.

It's like 2.7.

It's like Vegas.

Yeah.

Right?

So everybody in Lithuania saw it.

And I got like radio shows, TV shows, gigs just from that video.

And I didn't tell anybody until like a few years ago that it was all staged.

No way.

I just staged it.

And I think like now it's a common knowledge about viral videos, how to make it but like 10 years ago it was more niche I feel like oh yeah right for sure now there's a lot of scripted videos oh a lot that's like what companies do like their business based around that but I did it just off of the feeling I had I'm like I you know it and then every everything that was in the video was scripted like

even the thing that I'm on my way to a corporate gig.

So people watching this would know that I'm doing corporate gigs because that's how I was monetizing.

Right.

Not the views, you know.

And I got gigs just because of that video because people found my Facebook channel and then they would check other, uh, you know, my other photos.

Yeah.

And they would give me gigs.

So wow.

Yeah.

So it all started from that.

That was my first, first viral video.

And that was before you were even card throwing or it was before I knew how to throw a playing card, but I didn't I don't think I had Guinness World records at that time.

Yeah, you got a lot of records now, right?

I only have two.

Okay.

What are the records?

For I have

the

highest throw of a single playing card.

Highest?

The highest, yeah.

So you like throwing it up?

Throwing it up.

Okay.

How many feet?

Ooh, feet.

I'm from Europe.

Oh, okay.

So meters.

Yeah, meters.

Okay.

Can you do the...

I can in my head, actually.

Okay.

I don't know the ratio, but...

So we can write it down right here.

Yeah.

It's 14 meters.

14.

That was the record.

Now it's 22 meters.

Holy crap.

So that would be like five-story building.

14 meters is 46 feet.

46 feet.

That was the record.

Okay.

And now my personal one is 22 meters.

So I have my assistant right here.

Thias, do you know?

Your assistant?

72 feet.

My manager, I'm sorry.

70 what?

72 feet.

72 feet is my personal record, right?

That is insane for one playing card.

And it's a bicycle playing card made of paper, not a plastic one.

Yeah.

So does the wind impact it at all?

Are you outside?

So when you're breaking the record, it has to be indoors.

It has to be inside.

Yeah.

And then another record that I have is the most thrown playing cards with one hand in a minute.

So I just shoot 2.5 cards in a second with one hand.

Holy crap.

Yeah.

So are you holding them in between each finger?

Yeah.

Yep, just like this.

So 122 cards, one minute, and each card has to fly 12 feet.

If it doesn't fly at 12 feet, it doesn't count.

wow yeah 12 feet that's probably the length of this table right yeah that's that sounds about right that is crazy and practicing for that must have taken a while oh yeah yeah and i love it it's so addicting just like when you throw a car you want to go like faster higher more accurate so now i can cut a celery a cucumber by throwing a plain card are you serious yeah dude i gotta see that in person that's oh yeah we can do that really wow i wish i knew i would have brought some celery or something

that is so cool man i can cut your celery in half.

Oh my God, such a terrible joke.

I thought it would be funny.

What?

Oh, God.

Took me a minute.

I got you.

I got you.

You used to play basketball.

Me?

Yeah.

Did you used to play sports?

Not really.

I mean, that was maybe ChatGBD.

Yeah, it was.

No, I actually

tried to do ChatGBD.

I say, who's Roccus Bernatanis?

For some reason, it says I'm a basketball player.

Okay.

I have a feeling that Chad GBD was following me when I was like 12 years old, playing basketball with my friends.

That's about it.

Wow.

I never

played.

Yeah, it is really creepy.

Or one of my friends was like AI.

Yeah.

I never played basketball, you know.

Wow, he was a computer spy

reporting on your 12-year-old activities.

Yeah.

That is interesting.

When did you leave Lithuania?

I'm still in Lithuania.

Oh, you're still there?

I live.

So

I want to be everywhere, to be honest.

And you have the same feeling, like, oh, you know, LA is amazing.

And then

some parts of New York is phenomenal, Vegas, you know, like everything is so amazing.

But I found that Lithuania is where I want to be right now.

And what gives me comfort is Mr.

Beast, who is still in his home state, which is North Carolina, I believe.

And people are like, oh, you should move to LA.

Why?

You know, if he wants to go to LA, he's just like one flight away.

So

I feel the same.

I love Lithuania.

It's such a beautiful, beautiful country.

It's not small, not too big, not too small.

We have everything there.

Nature is amazing.

I'm two hours by plane or three hours from Italy, Spain,

England.

Nice.

U.S.

is a little bit more tricky.

It's like 12, 14 hours.

But on the way here, I can watch a movie, sleep, you know, answer some emails.

Yeah, so I come here for like bigger shows if I want to film content, if I have like corporate stuff,

if I want to

spend some time just vacation, you know, yeah, or

I have a theater.

Sometimes I have theater shows here.

Um, like I'm performing for a month somewhere.

Wow, a month straight?

Yeah, that's crazy.

How many shows are you doing right now a year?

Um, so last year I did

between 150, 180 shows.

Geez, that's like every other day.

It is, yeah.

Wow.

That is a lot of shows.

So you're pretty much traveling just non-stop then.

Yeah, but most of the shows are, I would say 80% of the shows are in Lithuania.

Oh, okay.

Some shows are, let's say, like a few weeks ago, I had a show in Spain.

So it's really easy.

You just fly in, do a show,

chill, come back.

You know, two, three days, you're back to Lithuania.

Got it, got it.

Yeah.

You take cold showers before your show.

How do you know?

Are you my AI fan?

That's crazy.

It was on Chat GPT.

It was not?

It was.

Was it?

Yeah.

Are you kidding?

No.

Are you kidding?

I'm not kidding.

I never told this anybody.

I use it on every guest.

Oh.

You get, oh, Chat GDBT or cold shower?

No, ChatGPT.

Oh, I was like every guest taking a cold shower.

That's how you pick your guest.

I wonder how I knew, though, if you never talked about it.

That's interesting.

It's crazy.

I take cold shower.

I even took a cold shower today.

Wow.

Because I knew I'll be talking to you and I have to have a different kind of energy.

So you force your body to be uncomfortable?

Mm-hmm.

Always.

I love it.

I just love it.

And one of my favorite things was

last July, I was performing in the theater here in the US one month every day except Sundays.

Sundays for church, because that was Arkansas.

Don't ask me why.

It's beautiful Magic Theater by Maxwell Blade in Hot Springs, arkansas love it

and that little theater had an apartment in it every single day before the show i would take a cold cold cold shower

yeah and that just amps you up gives you energy oh yeah yeah i love it i take them every day too really yeah i'm used to it now but the first first few were difficult

very difficult but now it feels amazing it feels amazing yeah it wakes you up man it's like i don't even need coffee when i take a cold shower yeah if you exercise take a cold shower,

that's, yeah, you're set.

Yeah.

So you've been exposing some scams.

Mm-hmm.

What are some big scams you've been exposing?

I, that's my latest thing.

Like,

so let me tell you the story.

I was working super, super hard.

Like, last

past two years, I was just, like, hustling like crazy.

And my friends are like, let's go to Bali.

Let's...

Raucus, you need to take your, you know, time off.

Just two weeks in Bali, have

i'm like i don't really you know i'm gonna miss out on so many things i have a show here i want to work on this one that thing and they're like no you really need to take time off let's go i'm like okay let's go to bali it was amazing i loved bali but it turned out that that those two weeks in bali i worked like one day i filmed one scam and that video

went viral like insane.

It was on all the platforms.

It got more than 20 20 million views and I was tagged that's because I was tagged on other profiles because they took my video and they got like millions of views so if I had to guess

you know that video was seen by more than a hundred million holy crap

people and it was like on the news in CNN in Indonesia because Bali is the island of Indonesia it was on the news in Lithuania everywhere so what I did is I exposed a money exchange scammer and he made made a mistake by,

he made a terrible mistake because he was counting the money.

And the way the scam works is he has his money.

You know, while you're, I'm counting my money, he drops some bills behind the table.

But accidentally, he didn't drop it behind the table.

He dropped on the table and then raised his hands.

And you can see the bill here.

And he was like, oh, and did that.

And that was the first shot of the viral video.

I think I saw this.

He's like, oh, yeah.

And people, some of the people, they thought this is staged because he was so bad.

I mean, he was actually really good, but he made like a terrible mistake.

And

I was like, people are interested in that kind of content.

I'm interested because the reason I wanted to catch the scammer is I was at the party with some Lithuanians and one guy, his name was Tadas.

He's like, yeah, I came back.

I was $200 short.

I didn't know where the money is.

And I was asking him, how do you think he scammed you?

Like, what was the technique?

He's like, there's no way he could just like, there's no way I can know.

Cause he counted the money.

I counted the money.

I came back and it was gone.

I'm like, there should be something in between that you forgot, that you didn't see.

And I just, I was so curious to see.

And I filmed it.

And it was just so easy.

He's just dropping the money behind the table.

That's how it works.

He's just misdirecting you, asking you some questions.

So while he doesn't give you all the money at once he gives you like pile by pile to count and it's it's very confusing because the the

uh the rupees the the local money is in millions yeah so you give 200 and it's like a couple of millions or something yeah so you can lose track yeah and you're like counting the money he gives you another pile and takes the one that you already counted and then drops like he drops some bills behind behind you yeah and you don't see it because you're counting so what i was doing i have my sunglasses on and i'm counting you had a camera and the sunglasses i had a camera in my pocket okay

and i'm counting and i have my sunglasses so so he cannot see my eyes but i'm watching what he's doing and just counting

and yeah and i i confronted him Yeah, he's like, oh, I'm sorry.

And then he dropped it again.

I confronted him.

He dropped it again.

He tried to scam me three times.

What?

I was so tired.

I'm like, dude, I can see what you're doing.

Just give me the money.

And then after you confront and say, hey, I know what you're doing, he's like, oh, yeah.

Here's the fee of for,

what is it called?

For the transaction, for the service.

So he adds like $2 fee or something.

Wow.

That $2 means like...

He was a loser.

He was not able to scam me.

Yeah, basically.

Yeah, and that got me into, I was like, I got addicted to exposing scams, you know?

So I went to Italy.

Italy is full of scams.

Really?

Oh, yeah.

That's good to know.

I'm about to go there.

Really?

Yeah, what kind of scams go down in Italy?

So pickpocket.

You have to be careful with pickpockets.

Always have your backpack in front of you.

That looks funny, but if you don't wanna lose your

money wallet, I would have your backpack in front of you.

Wow.

Never ever play games on the streets.

Even if it looks like you're about to win $200

and it's going to be the best day of your life

or your vacation in Italy.

Never ever bet the money.

Because this is how it works.

You join a group of people that are already playing and let's say they're all losing.

But you see where the ball is all the time.

They have three shells, one ball, and they're just like shuffling it.

And you're like, oh,

it's uh it's shell number it's shell number one

and somebody bets fifty dollars on shell number three and you're like oh my god it was under number one right but they're all together and they're losing intentionally so you think

if you put the money you would win easily but when you put your money the rules change because they just steal the ball and then put it somewhere else.

So it's impossible.

It's just impossible to win.

How do they get the ball from one cup to another one without you noticing?

They use sleight of hand.

They use magic.

Interesting.

Yeah, they just use sleight of hand.

There are so many techniques.

There are just millions of techniques.

But the only thing you need to know is never ever do it, even if it looks like it's just money laying.

on the yeah they probably fake the audience too they get their friends be in the audience everybody is fake like you're the only one who's real that's crazy yeah yeah usually there's a group of eight people and they look different.

You know, you have, you have different kind of people.

You know, the one is with a big, big backpack, looks like a tourist.

One looks like a local guy.

Another one is like, it could be even like

mother with a daughter.

They're all together.

Yeah.

That's that's insane.

Yeah, pickpocketing is big over there.

My mom got pickpocketed in Greece,

in Athens.

Yeah.

I heard that's pretty common over there.

Yeah.

Spain, Barcelona,

Thailand has some pickpockets.

I was in Thailand just now, tried to find scams.

Yeah.

And you know what?

The world is actually so safe right now.

I was just talking with Pendillette the other day that statistically it has never been so good.

Really?

But it feels like

it's the worst.

Yeah, I thought it was the worst right now.

in terms of safety.

Well, social media.

Social media, interesting.

So you didn't get any pickpocketers pickpocketers trying to come at you ever

i tried to be to get pickpocketed like i tried to

how do you say that in english i tried to be pickpocketed no yeah right yeah i tried to be pickpocket doesn't sound right

uh but i trust you i tried to basically i tried them to take my wallet Two days I was walking on the street.

Two days my pocket was in my back pocket and it just didn't happen.

So I had to fake it for the video and I mean I said in description that I just to show how it looks you know how the big pockets works yeah so my magician friend did it so the audience could see how it works but it's just it's not that easy you know so I have I guess you have to be lucky yeah so what do they do they just tap you on the shoulder misdirect your attention then go for the wallet so many techniques but

there are a few so one, they just

take it out from your back pocket.

They can use a knife.

Just

and just take it out.

They could unzip your

back pocket, backpack, sorry, and just put your arm,

put their arm and just take some stuff inside.

So they usually use spots where it's crowded, metro, you know, touristic places.

Italy, I heard,

what they do is kids actually

are trained to pickpocket because they cannot put them in jail.

Kids and pregnant

yeah, because your guard is down too with kids and with pregnant women, you don't think they're going to steal.

Exactly, and you cannot, like, police cannot do anything.

They're not going to put them in jail.

So Italy, I heard that's the case.

I haven't seen it, but I asked some local magicians and I did some research.

So that's how it is in Italy.

and another scam that not many people know

but I was looking for like pickpockets I was walking on like next to the Coliseum in Rome

pickpockets you know three shell games card games and I saw these

paintings I'm like

that looks very suspicious because a minute ago I saw almost exact same paintings but it says that it's watercolor like it doesn't it kind of looks like chat GBD not chat gbd but like ai generated

uh

drawings and then i saw another spot that had same kind of thing and then i've noticed that the guy is you know making those like drawing

but he's not doing anything he's just like pretending so ask him if this is real and he's like yeah of course it's real it's watercolor so i took some water and poured on the on the painting and of course it was just the print That's a clever one.

Yeah, wow, I never would have thought of that.

Same.

I was like, wait, that's suspicious.

And then I tried to find online.

Nobody did that.

Nobody exposed that.

And

yeah, so I think I was the first one to just

tell everybody.

So now they're using AI to scam,

right?

They're adapting with the times, right?

Yeah.

Yeah, that's crazy.

You got any shows coming up?

In Vegas?

No, no shows in Vegas.

Most of my work is corporate.

So I do private shows a lot.

I do a lot of private shows and conferences, business stuff.

Yeah.

What do you think about mentalists?

I've had a few of them on the show.

I love mentalism.

I do

all of my magic that I do is I do magic, comedy, and mentalism.

Everything I present is through comedy.

So I use mentalism myself.

I do mentalism.

Oh, yeah.

Yeah.

Let's see it.

I love it.

I'd love to see an example.

Give me a number from one to ten.

Go.

Okay.

Say it.

Eight.

Crazy.

Wait, what?

No, you just changed it under the table.

I know.

Thanks, Sherlock.

No, but there's some crazy mentors.

It is.

Yeah, I'll do a little bit of magic after you.

Yeah, like after we

talk.

We'll add that into the mi-roll.

That'd be really cool.

Awesome.

Any mentors growing up that guided you, or did you learn everything on your own?

I had a mentor in Lithuania out of the Stunis.

He was local.

He's a local magician in Lithuania.

Yeah, I was watching him on TV and I emailed him, 12, 13 years old.

I said, hey, Arvadas, my name is Rakas and I would love to learn magic.

And he just invited me to his like a small class he had of five kids learning magic.

So he was my first mentor, books.

There's a magician called Jeff McBride.

He's actually from Las Vegas.

He lives in Las Vegas.

I believe he's from New York State.

Yeah, so he was a big big mentor but now just books other magicians inspired by pen and teller show yeah other shows yeah because I feel like back then it was before social media so you had to learn in person or from books right it was old school it was old school YouTube was a thing but there were not a lot of YouTube tutorials like magic tutorials on YouTube so I had to buy magic DVDs to learn things yeah so it's probably a lot harder to learn back then it was and it was you have no idea how expensive it was let me just draw you a picture

so 10 years ago let okay 15 years ago when i just started

if i want to learn something i let's say i want to learn some amazing card tricks right there's a dvd on card tricks which costs 50 wow for a dvd yeah

$50 or like let's say $40

that's a lot for the US 15 years ago in Lithuania the difference for the money was insane.

So that's like one-fifth of the salary, like average salary of Lithuania, or like

probably minimum wage, one DVD.

And I'm 14 years old.

Right.

But here's the thing.

When you work hard, like a month, you have a job, like a summer job, you make money.

and you get that one DVD

you watch every single second of that DVD true.

You cherish it.

A hundred percent.

And then you watch it again.

And then you watch it again and again and try to listen to every single word.

But if you get it for free, you don't even watch all the way through.

You just watch like a couple of seconds.

If you're exposed to everything,

I kind of feel like you're exposed to nothing because you don't even appreciate that.

It's too easy.

Too easy.

Yeah, I can relate.

Yeah, there's definitely podcasts I watch where I'm kind of zoning in and out because it's just so easy to listen to so many different shows yeah what are your favorite podcasts uh depends on the phase of my life but right now right now i'm on a health and spiritual kick okay so andrew huberman joe rogan yes uh billy carson have you watched icy winton huberman he's a friend of mine magician yeah i think i've seen that one yeah such a beautiful like that's a great show oh yeah yeah But

I'm all natural now.

Yeah.

So I don't take any medicine or anything.

That's good.

And that's, do you think that's rare in the u.s yeah i don't know the exact percentage but i'd say over 50 of people here are on some sort of medication if i had to guess yeah which is like regular you mean yeah which is crazy super crazy i mean it's i would say okay good for them but what about their kids yeah and kids of their kids the whole generation it gets worse and worse right like lifespan is dropping right it's 73 now for for males i believe used to be 78 is it average lifespan yeah okay Are people in Lithuania pretty healthy?

They are.

Yeah.

I would say they are.

We the

you know

I have no statistics so I can just tell you what I'm exposed to what I can see.

So I would say it is and it's trendy to be healthy.

It's cool to be healthy.

It's not cool to be overweight or be on drugs.

It's

a lot of our celebrities are like exercising, going on marathons and yeah.

Nice.

So

it's not cool to be not healthy.

Yeah.

That's a great culture.

I'd love to

incorporate that here.

Yeah.

And it's easier to change because, look, it's a country of 3 million people.

So easy to compare with what you have here in the U.S.

You know?

Yeah, 3 million.

So your school must have been small growing up.

It was actually 1,000 kids.

Is it small?

That's actually not bad.

Yeah.

That's not bad.

1,000 kids.

Yeah, mine had 3,000, but 1,000 kilometers.

Oh, wow.

Yeah, 1,000 is pretty decent.

Yeah.

Do you still like talk to a lot of people you grew up with?

I have friends from every stage of my life.

So

I still keep in touch.

Not keep in touch.

We're still good friends, you know, really close friends with a few kids from school.

from you know college and and and and magic early in the day so i'm like i keep people from each stage i'm in you know yeah did your friends and your parents think you were crazy for wanting to be a magician?

They were.

Yeah.

They thought I was crazy.

They didn't support it?

They did.

Okay.

But then after, when it was about time for me to choose what I'm going to do after school and I said, I'm going to be a professional magician.

They're like, are you stupid, Rocco?

Because when you're a kid and you're doing magic, it's one.

And they love it.

And they're like, oh, that's so good for you.

You know, you don't have money for alcohol and cigarettes because you're doing card tricks and you need to buy all of that stuff and you're busy, you know, you're growing as a person.

It's you're reading books, you're learning the language, it's amazing.

But when

you're 19 and you're like, I'm gonna keep doing that, they were scared for me.

They were scared.

And I understand if I had kids,

I still don't have kids.

I would really want kids.

But if I had kids, I would be like, you know what?

How about you try to be a doctor?

Or I don't, I don't know.

Like, I would, I don't think I would want my friends to be my kids to be magician and magicians.

Wow.

Because it's not easy.

Yeah.

Statistically, it's probably one of the hardest professions.

Yeah.

I would say there are like scientists, probably like if you're in medicine, but it's just like you have to be an artist, you have to be a business person, you have to, it's just, it's my passion, so I don't, I like it, I don't care too much, but if you

approach this career with logic, that doesn't make any sense.

Yeah, you have to wear a lot of hats, right?

You got to adapt with the times.

Yeah.

Because I know a lot of the older school guys didn't like social media at first.

100%.

Yeah, it was like that with comedy too.

But now comedians are making a living off social media.

Yeah.

And do you know any famous, like super famous comedian that doesn't have social media?

No, they're all on there now, I feel like.

Even Chappelle, but he doesn't post much, but I feel like they're all on there at this point.

Yeah.

Same with Magic.

Yeah.

I feel like David Blaine, he's probably one of my favorites.

He's all over social media.

I see him all the time.

I want to see one of his shows.

He's in Vegas sometimes.

Yeah, he's in Vegas in May, I believe.

Yeah.

Have you ever seen him?

No, not yet.

But I really want to see him.

Yeah.

I mean, the stuff he does is the balloon one was my favorite, I think.

Yeah.

And when he pokes needles through his arm or whatever.

Yeah.

That's crazy.

That is crazy.

That's a good word to describe what he was doing.

Yeah.

And And we have a lot of mutual friends.

And I heard some inside stuff about him.

Oh, yeah.

He's like really crazy in a good way.

He's so dedicated.

What I really admire about him is that he spends hours and hours and hours to craft his art.

A lot of, I see, I feel like a lot of people are.

You know, they do ROI return on investment.

Okay.

One hour equals that much money.

He's like, no, I want to spend 20 hours and see what happens.

Yep.

He's just so dedicated.

I love that.

I love it.

Holding your breath for what he do?

15 minutes underwater?

Yeah.

He did the ice, being in ice for three days.

He's just pushing the human limits.

Yeah.

It is crazy.

It is crazy.

It's like almost a level past just magic.

It's like its own category.

It is.

He does stunts and magic, and he combines both of that.

That's why it's so crazy because you don't even know if that's magic or stunt.

And you want to believe it's magic because that means there's a secret.

Because if it's a stunt, there's no secrets.

Yeah, absolutely.

And most of the time it's dangerous.

Oh, yeah.

I'd say almost every time at this point.

I mean, because he keeps having to level up the previous stunt.

So it's at the level now where his life is on the line.

And I think he says he wants to do one grand finale trick coming up.

I'm scared to know

his grand finale.

It must be.

I was watching the Balloon One Live.

Oh, yeah, on YouTube.

Yeah.

I watched that.

I was so scared.

Yeah.

Because he was saying goodbye to his kids right before and the emotion, you could just feel it through the screen.

It's interesting that you found it scary for me.

It's like, it was such a happy moment because it's balloons.

Really?

Oh, I was shitting myself.

Really?

I mean, because if the balloon popped, I don't think there's any way of saving him.

And he actually

said he got knocked out once he reached a certain level.

His brain started shutting off.

Yeah, that's crazy.

Yeah.

That is scary, man.

But dude, it's been fun.

Anything you want to promote or close off with?

If

you were scammed, if somebody that is listening were scammed or saw a scam,

that would be awesome if they could just write me

a DM

on Instagram.

So it's at raucous underscore magic.

That would be amazing.

Because I really want to film more scams and maybe they have a footage and I can do something about it.

So that would be, yeah, that would be the best.

or and another thing i release my playing cards so if somebody collects if you guys like uh playing cards i have pelican playing cards that i'm so proud of i'm yeah they're just beautiful it's awesome we'll link it below yeah yeah thanks for thanks for coming on man that was fun yeah thank you so much yeah thanks for watching guys we'll link the site below if you've been scammed dm him on instagram otherwise see you guys tomorrow