Magician and Guinness Record Holder John Reid

[00:00:11] Speaker A: Hi, my name is John Reed. Welcome to Magicians Workshop podcast. [00:00:16] Speaker B: So before we get started with today's show, I just wanted to thank the community for all the love and support over the past year. I've had an absolute blast documenting the performers behind the art of magic. If you could take a second to subscribe to the podcast to support these amazing people, it would mean the world to all of us. At Magicians Workshop, the magic community is small but mighty and we want to hear your stories like, like the show. Leave a review, leave a comment on the YouTube channel. And remember that magic starts with a story. So let's get into it. Welcome back to the Magician's Workshop, the podcast where we explore the art, craft and business of magic and meet the creators shaping the magic world today. I'm your host, Dr. Todd. My guest today is someone who embodies creativity in every possible direction. John Reed is a magician, balloon artist, shop owner, teacher and entrepreneur who has been performing since the mid-90s. He's owned two magic companies, top Hat Magic and Tricky Business. He's taken over the legendary David Kresty products and somehow still finds time to perform, lecture and make world record breaking balloon art. John's career is a great example of how imagination and hard work can intervene. From crafting coils and running shops to making magic for families around the world. Today we talk about how John built his unique career and what he's learned from teaching and performing the story behind inheriting David Cressy's company, his philosophy on family magic, and how to become a Guinness broke world record holder. So sit back, relax and enjoy this conversation with the incredible and creative John Reed. Hey, John. Last time we hung out, we were lost in a mysterious Baltimore City mansion. I'm glad you escaped, but I'm still here filming from the sub basement. [00:01:46] Speaker A: That was one of the coolest things I had done in my life and it was so unexpected. Everything was unexpected about it. And the way, the way it was described to me was it's like an escape room, but it's not an escape room. I was like, all right, well, all right, I'm. Whatever, whatever that means, let's do it. Which, you know, I guess it's sort of how I live my life. I'm like, what? Think of the story. What could possibly go wrong? [00:02:09] Speaker B: What could go wrong? Well, thanks, thanks for joining me. Appreciate it. We had a little guffaw last time. I couldn't get the Internet working. So thanks for, thanks for rescheduling. [00:02:17] Speaker A: Take two. [00:02:19] Speaker B: No one heard anything. [00:02:21] Speaker A: Yeah, thank you for having me. I'm excited about this. This was with that intro. My gosh, that's a lot to. Lot to live up to. I. I gotta admit, I was not expecting that. [00:02:30] Speaker B: Well, thank you. I. What you're. I think what's interesting, if I've listened to other podcasts with you in it. [00:02:36] Speaker A: I don't. [00:02:36] Speaker B: I just don't think you ever say no. Someone says, hey, do you wanna. I have this company, I'm gonna sell it. You're like, yeah, I'll buy it. Like, do you have the money? Sure. And you don't. [00:02:43] Speaker A: You do it? [00:02:44] Speaker B: Yeah, I just. [00:02:45] Speaker A: I just. [00:02:45] Speaker B: That. That's one of those things where it just seems to me like you have a mindset that it's going to work. So it just happens. [00:02:54] Speaker A: I was just having a conversation with a good friend of mine who's younger than me. She's in her mid-20s, and I said, this is the best time in your life to screw up. This is like the messy part of your life. And everybody who's my age is going to be like, I remember when I was your age. No, you don't. Because when. When we were your age, the world was a different place. We didn't have social media. So I don't know what it's like to live your life. All I know is be messy. Be messy and. And try things and fail at a lot of them and. And hope for the best, and you're going to learn. You're going to learn a lot. And I don't know, I feel like that was. I was the best. Best advice I could give, and that's the way I kind of, like, live my life. My grand. When I told my grandmother, like, hey, I don't want to be an architect, I. I want to meet a magician, she said, I think that's a great idea. No one else in my family thought it was a great idea, but she said, look, you're young, you have no wife, no kids, no responsibilities. Don't. You'll never wonder what if. And I sort of, like, I took that to heart and I ran with it. Probably a little harder than I should have, but here I am. [00:04:01] Speaker B: There. All right, that's the show, everybody. Thanks for tuning in. We'll see you next time, because it's all downhill from here. [00:04:06] Speaker A: That's. [00:04:06] Speaker B: You just follow that advice. [00:04:07] Speaker A: We're going to start low on Peter off. If. [00:04:10] Speaker B: If you're starting at, like, I don't know, 42, what would you, you know, would you. What would you. Would you change Your advice for, for someone like that, trying to get into it. [00:04:19] Speaker A: So I would, I wouldn't. The difference is when you're like in your 20s, you don't know what you don't know. When you're in your 40s, you know a little bit of what you don't know and you know how to find out. You've, you've figured out, you've made the connections where you go, I don't know what I'm doing, but that person does. Let me ask her, like I'm going to ask her for the advice. And you're, you're old enough to be like, I don't need to be humble. Look, explain this to me. What is this TikTok thing? I don't get it. You can, you can find the pathway to answers a little bit quicker. And you're also, you know, hopefully you're a little more experienced in, you know, social interaction. So you know how to ask for things when you're a kid. And I say kid, you know, anybody under their 30s is a kid. Yeah, and that's, that's, I'm not, I'm not saying that like, you know, I'm some old sage wizard that, you know, these young and stay off my lawn. Anybody under, you know, 30, they have so much to learn and they don't even know what they don't know. And I mean I'm, I'm 48 and I don't know what I don't know, but I do know some things that I'm 100% certain that I don't know. So I know. Okay, well, I gotta, I gotta go find out more. [00:05:20] Speaker B: Yeah, I, I agree. I think that's the biggest thing I found is meeting people and like, like how we met at a magic convention, which was an absolute blast. And you performed at a magic convention, an absolutely amazing kid show. [00:05:32] Speaker A: What did you. [00:05:33] Speaker B: I remember you were telling my wife there's, there's name. It's like the motivational show. Like what was the, what was that kid's show was a specific. Like it was a self esteem show or. [00:05:44] Speaker A: Yeah, so it's a, I call it Secrets of Magic and it's the, the self esteem, self confidence character development show. And the idea is I want to get three things across during the show. And one is it's okay to ask for help. Ask older people when you're confused and don't worry if they don't know the answer, they might know somebody who does. So it's always okay to ask the big people that's something I want kids to understand. Like there's, there's a way to ask and it's okay to ask. You don't have to be worried that people are going to think less of you or they're going to think you're not smart. Ask the questions. Ask your big people. Because your math teacher might be a chess whiz, your, your science teacher might have been a dancer. Like, you never know. So ask those questions and, and, and help get them connected. The other thing is like, you know, believing in yourself is, is a big deal. It doesn't matter if everybody else in the room believes in you. You gotta believe in yourself. And it's also important to slow down. A lot of times we, we rush and we stumble through things and then we get frustrated. And sometimes you just gotta stop, do step by step by step. And getting that message out to kids is important. Cause that's, you know, that's what, that's where confidence comes from. It comes from humility of being able to ask for help. Slowing down and taking your time to learn the steps and realize that you're not gonna go from zero to 60 like that. You have to go at the right pace and that speed will come. And above all else, believe in yourself. You might not get it the first time, you're not gonna, might not get it the second time. You might not even get it the 40th time. But if you believe in yourself, you'll get there. [00:07:08] Speaker B: I kind of, I kind of headed off. I kind of started too fast. I, I, we got right to the kids show stuff when I really let me back up a bit. [00:07:16] Speaker A: Let's go back a sec. [00:07:17] Speaker B: Let's go back in time. [00:07:18] Speaker A: Okay. [00:07:20] Speaker B: Yeah. Um, what was, what got you into magic in the first place? [00:07:26] Speaker A: Okay, so gotta know. Long, short. I got a Fisher Price magic set when I was a kid and I had fun with it. And as time went on, I remember getting a book out of the library on how to do basic magic tricks. And I was incredibly shy. I didn't, I didn't want anybody to know I was doing it. I was, I was, everything was, I kept it inside. I would go to the library and get more books on magic. I used to joke I took out all the book we had on magic, but there was, there was like seven or eight books in the library. And I just cycled through every one of them, which is a lot for some libraries. I found one book. I had the good fortune Dover Books with all the Carl Holds books. Dover Books had a warehouse here On Long Island. So every library had easy to MasterCard. You know my favorite magic trick, Self working mentalism. Self working handkerchief tricks. Like, I got all those books and I just cycled through. [00:08:16] Speaker B: Oh, those are great books. [00:08:18] Speaker A: They're great books. Incredible resources. And at the time, I didn't know that a magic shop existed. I didn't know that magic camps existed. I didn't know that magic clubs existed. I was one kid with a book, and that's all I had. And every time I saw a magician, they were kind of, like, tight to the vest about things. They're like, well, I taught myself. And I'm like, all right, well, whatever, okay. And then those same guys come into the magic shop. I end up working. And I'm like, you lied. Yeah. So that being said, I bought a bunch of books. I bought a bunch of books, I read a bunch of books, But I wouldn't share it with anybody. And around time I got into high school, college, I started sharing a couple of things. And I remember in college, somebody said, hey, we want to do my nephew's birthday. And I was like, yeah, I don't. I don't do parties. And they're like, I'll give you $50. And I went, you want a rabbit? I'll get a rabbit. [00:09:04] Speaker B: I do parties now. [00:09:05] Speaker A: Yeah, I do parties now. Because to me, I was 17 years old, 18 years old, 50 bucks for 30 minutes of my time was I was gonna be a millionaire. And. And. And the best part was, like, I was gonna make more money in 30 minutes than I would make in 10 hours. Back then, minimum wage was $5 an hour. [00:09:26] Speaker B: I remember. And if you worked at a restaurant, it was three bucks if you were lucky. [00:09:31] Speaker A: Yeah, it was ridiculous. I was like, I'm gonna make so much money. And I got my very first credit card, and I promised that whatever I bought had to be used in the show. And I couldn't buy more until I paid off the credit card for everything that, you know, from all the money I made from shows. And I started, you know, I cut my teeth doing restaurants and birthday parties. And I would take any gig, literally any gig, even if it was free. And all the old guys were like, what are you doing? You shouldn't leave the house for less than a hundred dollars. And all I thought was, I need flight time. I need to kind of. I need to get good. And that put me in a good spot. Because love it or hate it, when people are like, it'll be great exposure. I'm like, look, folks, you can get Arrested in New York for exposure. But you need experience. So if you say it's going to be great experience, that sold it to me. And I got to perform in every kind of a venue, for every kind of an audience, in every kind of lighting, with every kind of stage or no stage setup. And I learned all of those things just getting good at it. And then all of a sudden, I started making a real. A real enough living that it's how I paid to get myself through college. And then it was all sort of. It evolved from there. I thought, you know what? This. I love this. I get up every day and get to go, I'm going to work. And I started doing balloons, and I got really into balloons, which is where the world record came in. [00:10:54] Speaker B: Yeah. And I've got. Don't worry, we won't leave that out. That's. That's gotta talk about that. [00:10:59] Speaker A: So it sort of evolved. And I had great teachers and I had great community on Long Island. Long island had an amazing magic community. And my mentor, Billy Naughton, who was the local guy that managed the local magic shop, took me under his wing, and he helped me learn about scripting and writing. And one day, he used to work out of a garbage can. Can was like this big. It was like a little like the kind you take the ashes out of the fireplace with. Wow. [00:11:26] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:11:27] Speaker A: And he had, you know, he had long hair and a scruffy voice. And he walked on to. To do a show with a garbage can. And he was like, a couple of things. It's my real voice. And no, Oscar the Grouch is not in the can. I'm a magician. And he would open the can, and he did his whole act out of a garbage can, and it was amazing. And one day he opened the can and he showed me how he had everything set up inside. And he showed me the art of packing small but playing big. He explained to me that, you know, you could get seven minutes out of a piece of rope, and it would be better than every big box illusion that you can. You can buy. Unfortunately, he passed away way too young, and I ended up stepping into his shoes for a little while. I ran the magic shop for a few years, and then I bought my own. And then I bought another one, and then I bought another one. But, yeah, it was that. That was sort of. That was the evolution. And I started doing schools and libraries. I had another mentor, Terry Perrette, who every time I wanted to do something, remember how I said, like, oh, I'll ask that guy yeah, he was the guy. And then he'd be like, yeah, I don't want to do libraries anymore here. And he would direct them all to me. Be like, what are you working on? Instead? He's like, I've got this school assembly show. Great. And then that he was like, yeah, I don't want to do that anymore. Okay. And he directed to me. And the first thing he did was he was the local guy who was into balloons. That was the best. And he just. He would find a thing, he would obsess about it, become really good at it, burn out, move on to the next thing. And I basically just rode his cocktails. [00:12:55] Speaker B: Wow. That I. I feel like I. A kinship with that guy. [00:12:58] Speaker A: And I've. I've been blessed to be able to do the same. So, like, there's a handful of people that are now the local balloon people, because I got them started, and there's people that I'm like, I don't. I. Not that I don't want to do birthday parties anymore, but my schedule is very filled with a lot of corporate work and a lot of schools and a lot of colleges, and I, I. Those are booked well in advance. People call for birthday parties two, three months out, and I'm like, I'm sorry, that date's been gone for seven months. So I get to usher in the next generation. Go. Hey, I got something for you. [00:13:27] Speaker B: That's fantastic. How far. How far do you do travel? [00:13:32] Speaker A: Um, as far as I've. [00:13:33] Speaker B: I mean, I guess it depends on the. [00:13:35] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:13:35] Speaker B: What charges? [00:13:36] Speaker A: Yeah, I. So I've done. Done 48 states. Wow. I'm missing Montana and Hawaii. [00:13:43] Speaker B: Okay. [00:13:44] Speaker A: And then I've done. I've been to 16 countries. I've worked in 14. Wow. [00:13:49] Speaker B: What's the. What's the. What would you say was the most interesting country that you worked in? [00:13:55] Speaker A: Interesting or favorite? [00:13:57] Speaker B: Uh, let's go favorite. Let's go favorite. What's your favorite country? [00:14:00] Speaker A: Italy. [00:14:01] Speaker B: Italy. Okay, that makes sense. [00:14:03] Speaker A: Do you. Do you do. [00:14:03] Speaker B: When you go. When you go to a different country. [00:14:05] Speaker A: Do you have a. [00:14:05] Speaker B: Have a lot of non speaking magics or so it doesn't matter what you're. What the. [00:14:11] Speaker A: Speaking what Italy was balloons. I were. I friend of mine had a balloon company. I went to help him out, so it didn't matter, but I did stuff in. Where else did I do. I'm trying to think where I did magic. Most of. Most of my traveling abroad was for balloon stuff. [00:14:24] Speaker B: That makes sense. It's universal language. [00:14:26] Speaker A: But I will say this in a Lot of. Like, in Italy, 90% of the people I spoke to were very good with English. I would try my butchered Italian and they would be like, it's okay. I speak. I speak at the English. And I go, that's. [00:14:37] Speaker B: It's like, please. Thank you for trying to learn. [00:14:39] Speaker A: But, yeah, so that. That for the most part, the only the countries that I did magic in were England, Scotland, Ireland. They all speak English. Okay. [00:14:46] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:14:47] Speaker A: They invented English. [00:14:48] Speaker B: I mean, I guess. [00:14:49] Speaker A: Yeah, I guess. I mean, I've done stuff in Shanghai and Beijing. Okay. I've done stuff in Italy, Belgium. I did something in Dubai, obviously. Canada. I'm trying to think. There's others. Switzerland, France. I used to be able to rattle them all off. [00:15:03] Speaker B: Hey, that's okay. It's. [00:15:04] Speaker A: It's. It's. [00:15:05] Speaker B: You've been. You know, where was that? [00:15:07] Speaker A: Spain. [00:15:08] Speaker B: Spain. Very, very nice. What. What made you. What inspired you to start balloon sculpting? [00:15:18] Speaker A: So when I was like, six, I got a balloon animal, and I learned how to untwist the animal and put it back together, and I untwisted it and retwisted and untwisted and retwisted till the balloon popped, and that was the end of it. And then when I was about seven or eight, I went to a. My. My sister just found the photo. I went to some sort of picnic, and there was a guy, and he was twisting balloons. He had, like, a little apron with just a pocket full of balloons and a little hand pump. And it was like, we refer to them as Yaya clowns. Yeah, yeah, I'm a clown. Like, the guy got, like, a painter's cap and he splattered it with paint. And then he found the ugliest shirt he could find, put on weird suspenders. He's like, he was a thrift store clown. He was a clown because they said, we want a clown. He was like, yeah, yeah, I'll be a clown. Can you do balloons? Yeah, yeah, I can do balloons. Can you face paint? Yeah, yeah, I can face paint. So we refer to those, I don't know, locally as a Yaya clown. So he was there and he made a dog and he made a bumblebee. And I watched him, and I watched him make these two things for everyone. And you can see the. I'm in the picture. I'm just kind of, like, looking at him, and he's sitting there talking to me, and he's being very patient. I have no idea who this guy was. Never saw him again. I showed the picture around Nobody knows who he was. And years go by, you know, nearly 20 years. And I get hired to do a birthday party. And the lady on the phone says, well, do you do balloons? The other guy said he'd make balloons. And I said, of course I make balloons. So I ran to the magic shop screaming, billy, Billy, what do I do? I said, I can make balloons. I don't know how to make balloons. He goes, all right, here's the book, here's the pump, here's the balloons. I was like, I don't have time to. He's like, you're going to buy this in exchange for my time to. For me to explain what's in the book. I was, oh, okay, here's my money. Shut up. Take my money. And I learned how to make a dog a sword. 137 animals that all look like a dog or a sword. And he's like, look, dog, long neck, giraffe dog, long nose, elephant dog, long tail, squirrel dog with stripes. It's a zebra. So I made. I made enough to get by, and that became a thing. And then that was when Terry Perrett kind of came into my life. He was the guy that was one step ahead of me always. And I saw him make a Daffy Duck. And I went, oh, my gosh, I want that. But by the time I got my balloons and came back, he had left. So I learned how to make version of a Daffy Duck. And then some kid said, I want Bugs Bunny. And I was like, I don't know how to make Bugs Bunny. And he goes, well, try. You know, nobody else would ever even try. And I went, you're right, kid. So I made a Bugs Bunny, and it was terrible. And I went home and I reverse engineered what I would need to do to try and make that. And as time went on, I started making more and more characters. And then Terry and I became friends. And he's like, I'll show you my Daffy Duck, which is not what you do. Can you show me your Roadrunner? I was like, yeah, here's my Roadrunner. He's like, this is my Tasmanian Devil. And I'm like, great. This is my Tweety Bird. And we went back and forth, one for one, for like, two hours. [00:17:59] Speaker B: That's so good. [00:17:59] Speaker A: And I. I took home an armload of stuff, and he took home an armload of stuff. And it was great. It was. I had a blast. And then he was like, yeah, I don't want to do balloons anymore. I'm just gonna forward all the Work to you. And he had sort of paved the way for next level balloons. Like, balloons that weren't just dog, sword, flower. Like, I can make bigger, better stuff. So I just kind of like, I stepped into great good fortune with that. Like, it was the biggest, best possible situation. And I would always say, I can do balloons. I come in, I do the magic show, and the balloons are part of the show. And they were like, okay, great deal, because I wanted the flight time for the show. Yes. And then I got to a point where people were like, we don't need your show. And I'm like. I was so insecure. I was like, but I can't, can't. Can't just do balloons. That's really. And a guy named Joe Lefler, who. He was a magician out of the Ohio area for years. He and I met up at Tannen's Magic Jubilee, which was up in the Catskills. And he's sitting on a couch. He was a. He was a larger than life person who was not large. He was just big, booming voice, but he was a littler guy. And he's sitting on the couch like he owns the hotel and he's got a pile of different balloon sculptures. And I was like, why aren't you in the mat? Why aren't you in the shows and the lectures? He's like, because I've seen it all. And I was like, okay, I want to talk balloons. So we sat down, we talked balloons. And he had opened my eyes to like, you can work colleges and corporate doing balloons like there's a whole other world. And I was like, okay, Obi Wan, teach me. And he brought me into a couple of corporate gigs because he didn't want to fly into New York. And he showed me the ropes and he introduced me to the community of balloon artists because I had this great magic community that I found when I was in my teens. You know, when I was a kid, nobody wanted to introduce me to it. But now in my 20s, I was finding the balloon community. And then I took off from there. I met, like, the greatest teachers and the greatest people and made friends and went from there. [00:20:01] Speaker B: I think you have to tell me about corporate balloon. Okay, this is blowing my mind. So tell me about, like, a corporate balloon gig. What is that even about? [00:20:13] Speaker A: So you remember those kids who don't know what they don't know? [00:20:16] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:20:16] Speaker A: A lot of those kids are interns at corporations and they just gotta figure stuff out. And it turns out if you tell them confidently that you are the answer, they'll go, okay. So I got a handful of people that were either interns or new hires, and they were trying to figure out how to plan their events. And I was like, oh, yeah, you know, you can bring me in for your holiday party. Have you ever thought about bringing me in for your trade show? And they're like, what are you talking about? It's like, you guys do trade shows, right? Yeah. Well, what do you have at your booth to draw people in? They're like, well, you know, I'm like, you're telling me you spend 25 to $45,000 on a booth? You don't have a person there to draw people into the booth and keep them long enough so you can retain their information. And this is before the days of scanners. This is like, you had to, like, get their name and take their name and write it down and find out if they had an email or a phone number. And I'm like, yeah, I'm going to keep people there for, like, eight minutes a person, because they're going to be waiting for a balloon sculpture. So you can really, like, sink your claws in. And I'll get as much information just having a conversation with them because they don't know what they're saying. They're just, I'm making a balloon and they're talking to me, and you can just write all that information down and qualify them, and if you want, I'll pass them off to you. And they went, okay. And that worked like a charm. And then all of a sudden, like, people would come up to me from other booths going, hey, do you do this? Do you work for this company? And I'm like, oh, no, no. Here's my card. I'll go wherever. And I went to Chicago and Vegas and LA and Georgia, Pennsylvania, Massachusetts. And this was like a thing. And then I ran into Danny Orleans at one point. He's like, so you do trade shows? Tell me about this. So I explained to him. He's like, that's really clever. How many do you do? And I said, I don't know, like six or seven a year. You know, sometimes eight or 10. And he's like, that's incredible. Like, most magicians who work trade shows do five a year. Like, Danny Orleans is like, the trade show. [00:22:04] Speaker B: Yeah, he does. That's like, yeah, a great kid show magician, but also great trade show magician. [00:22:09] Speaker A: He was one of my heroes growing up, because I watched what he did with kids show stuff, and I was like, that's. That's where it needs to be. [00:22:15] Speaker B: Brilliant. [00:22:16] Speaker A: Yeah. It's all so elegantly simple, but strong magic. He's not playing down to the kids, he's playing with the kids. Like, it's really. The psychology of the way he works. [00:22:26] Speaker B: Is absolutely so good. He's got a great book, kids show master plan, so. All right, enough, enough. Because I just love him so much that I'm like, we have to plug him a little bit. [00:22:35] Speaker A: Yeah, absolutely. And then twisting became installations, the bigger sculptures. And I started doing that as like the thing to draw people into the booth. And again, I would just confidently say, like, I've done it and it works. And I didn't lie. Like, I had made large installations and I had made them at trade shows, were just balloon trade shows. So I had images of work that I had done in a. In a venue, in a hotel lobby, or in, in some sort of competition. And I had done installations for movie theaters. And those pictures sold. Sold the business because they were like, wait, can you do like our logo in balloons? I'm like, yeah, sure. And now I started doing these bigger installations and then I started making dresses. And people were like, we want you to build a dress, put it on the girl, and let people come over and model with the balloon dress girl. Great. And they would give me ideas and we would riff and then we'd come up with something and it's like, well, now that's a product I sell. [00:23:29] Speaker B: That's genius. Dang. [00:23:31] Speaker A: All right. It was just so we're clear, that was me being messy. And sometimes it did not play out as well as I had hoped. But also, a lot of times they didn't have anything to compare it to. [00:23:43] Speaker B: Yeah, I mean, I mean, well, just think it's such a great. It's such a great thing to be able to do. Let's talk about the Guinness Book World Record. What inspired you to want to get a world record for single biggest balloon sculpture by single. [00:23:59] Speaker A: By one person. [00:24:00] Speaker B: By one person. [00:24:01] Speaker A: Yeah. So he was the world's largest balloon sculpture made by a single person. Everything had to be inflated, tied and twisted by me. Nobody could touch the balloons until from the beginning to the end. I had somebody count out the balloons, keep track. She had to tick off every balloon that popped. I popped over 380 balloons just in it happening. But the, the long short is I won a competition for balloons and I was so excited. And I have the plaque on the wall right there. First place balloon convention 2010. I thought, well, surely award winning balloon artist means nothing in the real world. And I had A conversation with a friend of mine. I was bummed cause I had then lost a competition. And I was like, I'm gonna go back and I'm gonna compete again. And he was like, why? You already took home first place. So now every time you go, if you take home first place again, you look like a bully because you're taking it from somebody else. And if you don't come in first place, then you're the has been, and you're too young to be a has been. And I was like. He's like, start thinking about things that real people care about. And when he said that, I went, ah, crap. I've been looking at this the wrong way. People know who the Guinness Book of World Records is. People don't know what the Society of American Magicians is. We. [00:25:15] Speaker B: We don't tell the sand people that. You know, they all watch this show. [00:25:18] Speaker A: No, no, no. But. But my point is, we know what that means. We've competed, and our peers find us to be the best. But you kind of have to explain that when you're. When you're a world record holder, you don't have to explain it. You're like, I'm the best in the world. The world has decided. But also, if you're like, I've performed on cruise ships. I have performed for celebrities. I've performed at the White House. I've. I've. I've done these things. I've invented magic tricks. Like, when you say things like that, people go, oh, wow. It doesn't matter if the magic trick is even good. If you go, I'm a magic inventor. I. I invent magic tricks that other magicians purchase and they perform. All of a sudden you're like, one step above. [00:25:57] Speaker B: Yeah, that makes sense. [00:25:59] Speaker A: Whether it's right or wrong, that's a perceived thing. When you go, oh, I. That's what I do. So my new goal was not to be the guy who won the competition. I wanted to be a judge. So for two years in a row, I was the judge for the competition. Some people, like, you ever compete? I'm like, yeah, yeah, I won. Yeah. But now, you know, I don't. I judge. And they go, oh, so you're not just. You're the authority? Like, there's a difference of, like, oh, I was on the Great British Bake off, and I was the judge on the Great British British Bake off because I'm the person who judges who's the best. Because I'm. I'm. I'm better than the competitors. [00:26:37] Speaker B: Right? [00:26:37] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm the sage wizard who. Who knows what's right and what's best, more so than the people who are competing. And all of a sudden, like, shifting that mindset was like, okay, so I want to have some sort of world record. And I didn't know what it was. And my friend Brian from Creative Magic and Discover Magic, he. He and I did the something book together. We were trying to figure out, like, some sort of publicity stunt called me up, and he said, hey, you ever think about doing the world's biggest balloon dog? And I was like, yeah, I don't want to do a dog. I want to do something a little more fun. Which, by the way, the guy who beat my record made a giant balloon dog, which, when it happened, was the most hilarious thing. I was like, that's crazy. This guy beat me. And he was smart about it too. He basically made the head and the legs and the tail and the legs and just made the middle longer and longer until he beat my record, which was the smart way to do it. It was massive. But I was like, yeah, I want to do something a little more interesting. Something more artistic, creative, whatever. And he's like, cool. So if I got you. You know, there's this thing here in Vegas in Utah. It's basically like a fan convention, like a comic con style. Can't say comic Con. Comic con is branded, but it's. It's a similar feel. You know, they have stars from the old sci fi stuff. They have vendors, they have artwork. They have all kinds of stuff. He goes, if I could get you a spot there to do a Guinness World Record, would you do that for a publicity stunt for the something book? And in my mind, I was like, well, that's adorable. They're. They're just gonna give you hundreds of square feet in a. In a. An array where they're charging through the nose. They're just gonna give that to you. Oh, that's adorable. Sure, Brian, I'll do it. And he goes, great. They already agreed to it. I was like, so now I had, like, a month to figure it out. [00:28:17] Speaker B: Yeah. [00:28:18] Speaker A: And in my head, I had, like, ideas kicking around, but I had to settle on something. And I settled on a design that was going to be really, really easy. And when I got there, I said, okay, I'm going to start at the feet, and if I get through the feet in less than eight hours, I'm going to. I'm going to up my game a little bit. I'm going to do something a little better than the photo and the specs that I gave them, and I got it done in four hours. And I was like, I'm on a roll, and I get to go home tonight and take a nap. So I went home, I took a nap, and the next day was 14 and a half hours straight. [00:28:49] Speaker B: Holy moly. [00:28:50] Speaker A: The next day was, like, 10 and change. And then the last day was like, again, it was like 10 and change. Like, it was. It was 41 and a half hours over the course of four days. And that first day, when I got through the shins in, like, four hours, I was like, oh, my gosh, this is going to be great. I mean, we. I went on for maybe seven hours that day, but when you spread it all out, you go, okay, that was a lot of time to spend on one sculpture. But when you. When people go, oh, so you're a balloon artist? And you go, yeah, I'm gonna. You know, I'm a Guinness World Record. Here's the picture that has way more weight than anybody giving you an award. And you're like, this is my award. Look, I won this thing because you go, here's. Here's a tangible certificate that says I am the best in the world at what I do. And that, for me, was. That was. That was. That was a goal that it's nice to check off the bucket list. But it was a tactical move. It was a marketing tactic. A tactical marketing move. [00:29:43] Speaker B: When did. How did you decide that that was going to be. That that was going to be something that was. Was achieved? Like, how do you decide what is. What is worthy of an award? Like, how? [00:29:53] Speaker A: Well, that's the thing. Like, Guinness World Record. There's a metric. It's the biggest balloon sculpture. And like I said, the design I had was not very good. It was. Was going to achieve what I wanted to achieve, which was hit a size limit, a number of balloons in an amount of time. Because somebody else had done something and I wanted to. I doubled what their record was. So all I had to do was. Was come, you know, a little more. But I wanted to go double. And I knew that what I wanted. What I wanted to do was going to take me probably four days. What I could get knocked out real fast and be like, yep, it's technically bigger. It's. It's a robot. It looks like it's put together with giant blocks, but it's a robot that I probably could have done in 20 hours, but it wouldn't look good. [00:30:35] Speaker B: Right? This is the picture. I'm gonna put the picture up right now. Okay, but that. Yeah, it looks great. Like, you can look at it. You're like. And you gotta share the name. It's a great name. [00:30:47] Speaker A: So. And I found the guy's name. I think it was Tom. Oliver was his name. Oliver. Oliver Thomas. Now I gotta look at. I gotta look it again. I'm sorry, whoever, whatever your name was, but we didn't have a name for it. And this guy comes up and he goes, you know what you gotta call him? Was like, no. Goes. Popped him as prime. And I was like, that's it. That's what it is. Forever. So it's popped him as prime. I can't take credit for that. That was. Somebody else came up with that. And I thought, that is so brilliant. And that is great. So remember I said, you're. You're going to have to be messy. I was being messy. And because I was being messy, my buddy Brian hired a photographer because he's like, if this turns out great, you got to have really good pictures. Otherwise I was just going to be taken with my iPhone and iPhones, you know, 10, 11 years ago were. [00:31:28] Speaker B: Yeah, they weren't. [00:31:28] Speaker A: They were good, but they weren't that good. So he hired a professional photographer because he wanted to get mileage out of this. And I can't think of enough because that made the world of difference. Those photos you see were all because somebody had a great camera, but also this guy coming up and giving me that name, plus then having people there. I got to be on the morning news. I got to meet the power. I was on the morning news with the green Power Ranger. Yeah, yeah. No, and he was. He was the coolest guy. [00:31:56] Speaker B: Awesome. [00:31:57] Speaker A: It was. It was. And it was such a great experience. I met so many people at that conference because I was being messy. And like, in hindsight, that was a pivotal point in my career. And at the time, I didn't know how it was going to turn out. If it. If it did turned out a quarter as good, it would have been a great time. I would have gotten some mileage out of it. It would have been. It would have been a good time because it turned out as well as it did. It was a turning point in my career. And it. It launched me not just like, to the next level, but, like, I surpassed a level. I got one above where I should have been going next. [00:32:36] Speaker B: Yeah, you got to. You got to skip floors. [00:32:38] Speaker A: Yeah. I went. I went from. From that to buddy's house in Vegas and he had, like, one of my heroes in the balloon World is a guy named Buster Balloon. Brilliant artist, really creative thinker, smart magician, and just all around great guy. One of my heroes. He's the reason I entered that competition in 2010, because he looked at something I was goofing around with, and he was like, is that your competition piece? And I said, no. And he goes, I'd vote for it. I went. So I put it in and I won. So I show up at my buddy's house, and Buster is there. And he goes, hey, man, I knew you were good. Where did that come from? That's unbelievable. And it was humbling. It was like, yeah, thanks. To find out, like, that your Yoda is impressed by you. It's like, man, this guy, because he is. He is like. He is the Yoda of the balloon world. He's like the OG balloon guy that he had. Had. He had been part of Guinness World Records in group projects. Wow. So to hear him be like, hey, man, well done. Very impressed. I was like, thanks. [00:33:39] Speaker B: I like this. Like, gee whiz. [00:33:42] Speaker A: And again, like, that's a thing that you can't plan. Like, oh, I want. I want my. My mentors to be impressed with me. Like, you can't. You can't go out with that intention. [00:33:52] Speaker B: No. [00:33:53] Speaker A: Yeah. But when you're messy and you succeed, sometimes that happens. [00:33:56] Speaker B: I love that. So let's set up a little bit real quick about the something book, because I don't want to gloss over that, because that's kind of how you got into it. Something book is brilliant. Tell me the history of the something book, what it is, and where we can get ourselves a cop. [00:34:13] Speaker A: So you know what? I should have. And I put one over here. I didn't put it on my desk. So the long short is there was this foam word, something, that was put together by a guy out of. His name's Neil. He's Balloons the Clown. He's out in Bushkill, Pennsylvania. And he'd be like, hey, you want to see something? And he would reach into his case, and it was just this foam word, something. And then he sold the rights to someone and they moved it around. And I saw my buddy, my goddaughter's father did it, and he was like, here's something. No, something's wrong. And he would turn it upside down. He's like, I broke something. And it was just his foam word that he got a couple of bits out of. So I immediately go out and I get one. I'm like, that's genius. I gotta have one. So I get this thing And I put it in my show, and I start developing more bits. Do you smell something? Oh, no. I stepped in something, and I'd throw it to somebody behind the curtain, be like, you okay? It looks like you caught something. All these bits became part of my shtick, part of my show, became part of my identity. So skip ahead. I break it. Literally, it tore in half. So I call the guy up and I go, hey, man, I need. I ordered this phone word from you. I need. I need another. You know what? Give me three. You know what? Give me a half dozen. This way. I got them. Half dozen will last me for life. Little did I know. Later on, I ended up buying these things by the gross. Wow. So one of I. I'm going to my friend's housewarming party. I don't have anything to bring. And I thought, as a bit, I'll bring them something, and I give it to them. And I don't know if you've ever been to a housewarming of a bunch of kids who are in their late 20s, early 30s, but there's no cable, there's no furniture, and there's no kitchenware because everything is still packed up. You know, they literally just bought this house, and we were going over, so. So I was like, hey, I got you something for the house. And they thought it was great. So they put something on the mantel. And I kept getting texts from the family that. From the husband and wife for the rest of the week. Like, oh, my God. This is what he did. Honey, honey, there's something stuck under the couch. Honey, honey, something fell down the stairs. Honey, the sink is. There's something clogging the sink. So they kept sending me these bits, and I was like, that's hilarious. So now I started giving them something for the baby shower. Something for your birthday, for Christmas. Everybody got a little something in their stocking. The problem was the words were, like, shoulder width. And they're like. You know, they're thick. They're big foam. So I was like, I need to get these things cut down smaller. And I call the guy up and I go, yeah, I want them like. Like this big because they don't nail well. And he's like, well, you know, the die to get the die cut is like 1800 bucks. I was like, ugh, wait a minute. I got a friend who makes cookie cutters, custom cookie cutters. I'll have them make a cookie cutter, and I'll take sponges, like dish sponges, and I'll just stamp them out with a Hammer, you know, because like, I got that kind of time. And then I went, wait a minute, I got a better idea. What if I make a cookie cutter and then you could bake something. Now you got something, but you can bake something. You stamp them out. And I saw these little plastic cookie cutters and I went in with my friend Brian, who was of creative magic fame at the time. And as we were getting a little further in, I found like these silicone molds for ice and baking. And I was like, hey, man, I know this is a crazy idea. This is going to like. It's not just going to like double the price. It's going to like 20x our costs. Like this is going to be a major expense. But I really do believe this is the way to go. And he was like, come on, let's do it. So we went and we had them engineered and designed and we went back and forth. We had silicone molds made that were like plaster cast. Then they poured silicone in just so we'd have a proof. We made a couple of things, but the long short is it ended up becoming this. This is a silicone baked form in the shape of the word something. And the book was crowdsourced. This was his brainchild. He was like, oh, we'll just ask people, we'll make the molds. We'll give them their mold early and they'll, we'll do a competition. Whoever gets in the book gets an extra mold. If they get three things in the book, they get a mold and a book. And if they get the most things in the book they get, we'll give them an iPad. IPads were big at the time. Yeah. And I'm happy to say we had to give away two iPads because two separate families got almost 50 ideas in each. Wow. So there's 366 ideas of what you can do with the book. About 30% of them are no bake. So, you know, put something in the punch. So it's just ice. There's a bird seed, bird feeder with seed and peanut butter and stuff. There's a vegan dog biscuit. There's or there's, there's a bunch of no bake, you know, like cakes and chocolates and stuff. But yeah, it's a, it's a fun experiment. Experiment. It was an amazing experience. And the idea was, I have a mission. I want to create 10 million smiles. And this was a way for me to accomplish exponential smiles. Because you get the book, you smile, Right. You laugh. Hahaha. You flip through the book, you show your friends, you smile. And then you have two options. You re gift it, and now you get another smile. Or you rip that mold off and you make however many things you can with that. And when you share it, you go, hey, I got you something. And it's. It's great. It's a groaner. It's a dad joke. [00:39:16] Speaker B: Yeah, it's a dad joke. [00:39:17] Speaker A: It. [00:39:18] Speaker B: It appeals to me in that way. [00:39:19] Speaker A: Yeah. And, and, and I get that. But there's something about when, when people get it, they get it and they really get it and they love it. They love the play on words. So you get people who are, you know, English professors. And I go, hey, you want to see something? And they're like, yeah. And I go, here you go. And they're like, oh, yeah. Words matter. Yup. [00:39:40] Speaker B: That's awesome. So you're. I mean, speaking of entrepreneurship, I mean, that's one of the things I think is really cool about what you do. Let's talk about David cressy products. On 2005, you took over David Cressy products, which is. I am a noob. And so I've only learned recently about kind of the legendary name of David Cressy. But how did that, how did that then. [00:40:03] Speaker A: So again, I was messy. And when I was working in that magic shop, I met a guy named Tom Rubino, who of. He was an illusion builder that lived on Long island who has now since made illusions for all the big names. He is one of the most brilliant fabricators, builders you will ever meet, hands down. Just between him and Mark Schock, the. [00:40:26] Speaker B: Guy who built that box, that balloon box is awesome. [00:40:29] Speaker A: They are two of the smartest guys I know when it comes to building magic, to just to making things. And I remember at one point I asked like, how are you so good at it? And the answer was, I own a lot of books. And I read them. I was like, ah, there it is. Because you can buy all the books, but until you read them, until you play with the stuff, doesn't do anything. And they were messy. So anyway, Tom Rubino introduces me to a guy named Larry Maples. Larry Maples was a cruise ship magician, and he also helped me immensely. I would ride in the back of his minivan with him and his wife going to shows. And I was the guy in blacks, learning about stage managing and stage presence. And the shows were a good education. But those 14, 15, 18 hour van rides cross country to do whatever corporate gig we were doing, that's where the Education happened because he would tell. We would trade stories. And he was the guy who made the ultimate snowstorm. But he didn't make them like he was on a cruise ship. So Tom Robino was making them, and then I was making them, and then the machine broke while he was on a ship. And this is before cell phones. So I sent him an email. I'm like, hey, man, the machine broke, and he panicked. He's like, I'm not gonna be. I'm gonna be back in three weeks. And I. Then I'm gone for like six months, eight months. Because when you were on a cruise ship, you were on a cruise ship. Like, that's your. That was your life. You were on the ship's for like, six months. What there was. There wasn't really a fly in, fly out, especially if you were an illusionist, you know, and he had all your stuff, like, it's all there. So he comes home and he says, hey, I'm selling the snowstorm company. I'm selling it to that guy. You can work for him now. And I went, nope, I'm out. And he's like, what's the difference if I send you the checker? He sends you the check. The money is the money. I was like, I don't want to work for him. It's. It's nothing personal. You and I are friends. I do this because we're friends. I do get paid, but he and I are not friends. So I don't want. I don't want to work for him. And he's like, okay, well, you can just teach the new guy. I'm like, you can teach the new guy. Like, I'm not. You have a couple options. Sell it to me. He's like, well, I want 10 grand. I was like, I got 10 grand. He's like, you don't have 10 grand. I'm like, you don't know what I have. Just so we're clear, and I'm saying this. I didn't have ten grand, but I had gotten a letter from my credit card company saying they were going to give me an $8,000 unsecured loan. And I thought I got eight grand. So I went to the guy that owned the magic shop, and I said, hey, man, I got this loan. It's coming in. It'll be here in a week. I negotiated a deal where I'm going to give him five grand now and five grand when he comes back home in the new year. So that's three months. So I got three months to make $2,000 on a company. He showed me the invoices. I know how much product I make in a year. I should be able to come up with the extra two grand. And if I can't, I'll figure it out. But can I borrow five grand today? I'll pay you five grand back in a couple of days. And then I got three grand left over for operating capital, and he gave me the money. He turned around, opened the safe, put the most cash I'd ever seen in my entire life on the table, put it in a paper bag, wrote on an index card, which I still have, John Reed, $5,000. The date. He goes, just sign your name right there. Okay. Shook my hand, put that in the safe, closed the safe. You want a shot of whiskey? I was like, no, no. I don't know what to do with all this money. So I went. We signed the contract, and he said, yeah, in three months, you better have the other five grand. No problem. So I went home, I got the loan. I took the five grand, and I gave it to Phil. I said, here you go. Thank you so much. He goes, here's what I want you to do. Keep it. You still owe me five grand. But now you have enough money for that operating capital and the other $5,000, you pay me back when you can. And I was like, oh. Because it didn't occur to me, like, all right, I'm going to get to a point where that $3,000 and that $2,000, it's going to start. It could go the other way, because what if I have to order paper? What if I have to. So all this stuff happened. I learned so much. And fortunately, I was. I was well in the. In the black with. Within that three months, I called up all the distributors, and I said, hey, I'm the new owner of the company. I just want to let you know the machine broke. That's why I got it. I don't know how soon I'm going to get it fixed up. I only got 200 boxes left, so you let me know how much you want. And every distributor took 200 boxes. I didn't tell them that I had. I already got the machine fixed. So I cranked it all out. I was in the black within two months. Because of that relationship, I met Dave Cressy. And Dave is the one who got Larry started. And over time, he and I become closer. We chat on the phone. He places an order, I place an order. And one day, somebody goes, oh, yeah, Dave Cressy's going out of Business. It's like, what? So I call him up and I go, dave, Dave, Dave. It's John Reed, the snowstorm guy. You're going out of business? He's like, what are you talking about? I was like, I heard that you were at the Sam convention. You told people you're going out of business. He's like, ah, that's just an old bet. I was like, wait, a what? He goes, well, if I'm not selling enough stuff, I tell people, yeah, I don't know. I think I might retire. I think this is going to be it. Get what you can while you can, you know, because I'm not going to be around forever. And it was just like a line that he said, but somebody. [00:45:31] Speaker B: Furniture store idea. I love it. [00:45:33] Speaker A: So people took him seriously, and they would wipe him out, and he'd go home with buckets full of cash instead of buckets full of coils. So he goes, yeah, no, no, I'm not selling. Why? You want to buy it? I go, I don't know. You want to sell it? He goes, I don't know. You want to buy it? I go, yeah, I want to buy it. You want to sell it? He's like, I don't know. What do you think it's worth? I was like, I don't know. What do you think it's worth? He's like, I don't know. You want to buy it? I go, well, you want to sell it? He goes, I don't want to sell it. I'm like, well, then I don't want to buy it. So we had this, like, back and forth. [00:46:02] Speaker B: So funny. [00:46:03] Speaker A: Here's the deal. If ever you want to sell it, please call me first. So I have this magic shop, and I sell the magic shop, and I get the check for it. And it was a toy store magic shop. And I'm going home, and I'm so excited. I've got. I've got the money from my toy store. I'm free of this. This retail establishment that I want. I was so happy to be done with it. I get a letter in the mail from Dave Cressy that says I'm selling the company. Come on. I didn't even cash the check, Dave. [00:46:31] Speaker B: Right? You had the money in your hand. [00:46:33] Speaker A: I had the money in my hand. Now, I had 10% of what his asking price was, and I wasn't going to negotiate. It was 100% worth what he wanted. And I called him up and I said, hey, I don't have the money right now. I want to come up. I want to see what this is about. He goes, nah, you don't want it. It's a marriage. You're going to be stuck with this thing for the rest of your life and blah, blah, blah. I was like, can I come up and talk to you? So I drove up to Boston from New York. It's like a four hour drive. And I sat down and he literally just opened his doors and showed me how everything works. I could have gone home and figured it out myself and done it on my own in theory. And I said, all right, let me figure this out. And I went home and I refinanced my house. And I said, I don't have what you're asking. I've got 75% of what you're asking, worth every penny. If you want to sell to somebody else, sell to somebody else. And I'm not asking you to not to give it to me for less. What I am asking for is you take. Will you let me pay it off on a note for the next four years? So you'll basically get a payment every month for the next four years so that I have enough operating capital, you get your money. And he goes, I'll make you a deal. I don't want you to pay me in cash. We're going to set up a bill, and if I want product, you send me coils. If I want to send something to my friends, you send it to them and just take it off the bill. And we did that. It was all a handshake deal. We later on negotiated something because I realized that it's his name and I wanted to make sure that there was some sort of trademark protection with his name. So we, we worked that out later. But it was, it was a six figure agreement on a handshake. Wow. Initially. So that's how I ended up with Cressy. And again, very messy. I did it in my living room for the first three years. [00:48:13] Speaker B: What, What? Okay, so I want to. I'll get into the, like the coils and kind of that in a second. But what for somebody that doesn't know, like, kind of the history of David Cressy, like, what made his products, like, like, like what made people want his products over other products. [00:48:30] Speaker A: So there was a. The original, you know, coils come back from, I believe it's Chinese. They were made with silk and they were used as decorations. And somebody realized, like before you produce them, they're like small. So you could, if you make them out of silk, it's expensive, or ribbon it's expensive, but if you make it out of paper, you could, you could make them disposable because you can't put them back together. Once they're open, they're open. So Max Landano invented this machine that he could stamp out coils and they were fine, but there's other ways to make them. And the way most people would make them was they would take like a kitchen knife and cut the coils to make it work. And that's how Dave did it originally. They were, he was making his own coils because he was on a shoestring budget and he was doing shows. So he took a miter box and a serrated kitchen knife and he hand cut all of his hand rolled coils. And as time went on, he found a new way to do it. And it was a method that he used that was very, very dangerous. But he was a, he was a engineering mind. He never graduated high school. In fact, I don't know if he graduated eighth grade. He was, you know, he was, he got right into working for, you know, a fabricator. And he knew a little bit about. [00:49:46] Speaker B: What self made man, 100%. [00:49:48] Speaker A: He's, he, he was. And his wife was the brains on the finances. So when he got paid, he handed her the checks and he walked away. And she made sure the bills were paid and she told him what his allowance was. He had, he had found this paper that was like tie dyed. So he started using those and the local guys were like, hey man, I want some of those mouth coils. So I'll sell you a pack there. Yeah, $10. Okay. And he was like, oh, okay. So he started selling to the local shops for, you know, he, he had to sit down with somebody and they had to explain fractions to him so he could understand what wholesale and retail was because he didn't know. So time goes on and he calls up, he's like, D. Robbins was the big name in, in magic. He's like, I want Robbins to sell my coils. So he calls up D. Robins, like, not interested. He's like, come on, not interested. So then people start calling him going, hey, we want coils. And he goes, go order them from D. Robins. So he gets a handful of people to call D. Robins go, hey, we want to order the Dave Cressy coils. And they're like, we don't carry them well, okay. So after a handful of people calling, they call up, Paul, Paul Free calls up and says, hey, we want to order coils. And he's Like, I'm going to sell 50 packs of coils. And they go, we want four gross jumbos and six gross regulars. Some, some astronomical number like that. And he was like, well, I don't have that. They go, well, you got to Friday to make them. He and his family stayed up for six days straight and they made them and they delivered on time. And at that point his wife was like, get it out of the house. So he went and he found a little space and he set up a room and he made them at this little office. And then he got the next room and the next room and the next room. And he grew from at his kitchen table to that. And he had the business for almost 30 years before I bought it. Wow. [00:51:44] Speaker B: And what do you make him in a warehouse? [00:51:47] Speaker A: I mean, yeah, this. So this is the office. The warehouse is back there. And when I had my first big warehouse, there was a kid that was doing a lot of the work for me. And when I said, I don't want to do this anymore, he was like, well, I, I, I got a kid I gotta feed, so help me help you. I wanna buy the business. I was like, well, you don't have the money. And he was like, I don't, but I also, I'll do it for whatever, I'll do it for free until I pay it off. And then the pandemic hit and it ended up where now we're, we're sort of like a symbiotic relationship where he's like, I love making coils. I hate talking to people fair. So if you sell them, I'll make them for one customer. You. And I went, okay, done. So he came over today. So I have a warehouse again because I have other stuff going on. So he has a giant barn in his backyard. And he makes a lot of them insulated and all set up so that he can do it, and he does it there. And then we package everything here and we ship everything from here. So, like, I help with the inventory to make sure that he's got the right papers and the right stuff and he's learning how it goes because, like, at some point I'm not going to be around anymore and his kid's still going to need to get fed. I'm trying to alleviate pain points of him for him. And those pain points are inventory ordering and shipping and talking to magicians. [00:53:05] Speaker B: That's. Yeah, that's hard. Magicians are not always the best communicators anyway, so. [00:53:10] Speaker A: And he's not a magician. So when they're like, oh, yeah, I'm looking for the ones, you know, you use in Eugene Burger's routine. And he's like, we have these in blue. Yeah. Oh, it's, It's. It's worked out really well that he took over the part that I didn't want to do. Like, for me, it's meditative. I like to make the coils every once in a while because it helps me relax. But as soon as it becomes like, I have to make them, I'm out. Like, I don't want to. I don't want to do that. [00:53:36] Speaker B: Yeah, it takes something that you enjoy to makes it a chore. I. I have an. I have a challenge for you. I need the top uses for mouth coils that don't involve a mouth. [00:53:49] Speaker A: Oh, go. Fortunately, I have a book called shut your mouth. [00:53:54] Speaker B: Love it. [00:53:55] Speaker A: 1010 different ideas of things you can do with a coil that don't involve putting it in your mouth. So pulling the colors out of a coloring book. The final load for a set of cups and balls. Using a change purse frame with no bag. And you basically just palm the coil here and pull the streamer out. And at the end, you. You're left clean because there's nothing left there. I even came up with one idea, which was a hot rod force. So when you pull out a red, white, a Roy G. Biv coil, it's set in the order you can do a hot rod force and force, you know, green every time, just depending on which end you count from. So you can use it as a mentalism bit. You can pull out the coil. One of the things I used to do which was such a brilliant idea was when. When you're looking, when people are like, it'll be great exposure, they always want you to do grand openings. And they. The thing that happens at a grand opening is you have all the adults standing around with giant scissors, and all the kids are sitting over there with the magician. Not allowed to be in the pictures. So we made our own ribbon appear, and every kid breaks the ribbon, and every kid keeps a piece of the ribbon. And we got on the paper two or three times with that one, because what's cuter than the kids doing their own ribbon cutting? The next generation of young entrepreneurs got to participate like it always, and the kids leave with a piece of it. So they loved it. So it was like I would. I would rip a paper and say, we got to do a ribbon. And it was too small. You know, it was just a small strip of paper. I go, there's a way to do this. We'll stretch it out here. You stand there. Oh, but now it's not connected. You know what? Here, put them back together. And then one kid over there, me over here. Every kid stands there, and we all break the ribbon. [00:55:25] Speaker B: So cool. What's harder to make mouth coils or throw the throw ribbon things? [00:55:30] Speaker A: It's apples and oranges. [00:55:32] Speaker B: Okay. [00:55:32] Speaker A: Yeah. [00:55:33] Speaker B: That looks way harder. When I looked at those. Those little ones. [00:55:36] Speaker A: So it is. I'll say the. The process of the throw streamers is more tedious, but there's more steps in the coils. Okay. [00:55:47] Speaker B: Yeah. And I tell anyone that's watching this, if you get a chance to see you in a lecture you made during the lecture, you made coils while we watched and you talked, and it was brilliant. And then we. We all threw hand streamers, which you see a room full of people throw hand streamers. It's pretty wild. [00:56:04] Speaker A: It's my favorite. And it was one of those things where I remember the excitement of the first time you do a thing like that. Like, if you think about the first time you throw streamers, if it doesn't work, it does work. You go, that was fun. I'm like, well, I want every. I remember I was so insecure about my first lecture that I was afraid that nobody would appreciate the ideas, but at least we had fun, and that would make a great picture. And it was very messy. And it turned out that they were like, that was the coolest thing in the world. I've never done that before. I have six packs of them at home. I didn't even know how to use them. And I was like, oh, well, this is. It's great marketing. It's a great picture. And it's getting people to use something they already have because they bought them but didn't understand it. Now I put it in their hands, and they did it. And for me, the photos that I get over the years of sometimes a hundred people throwing streamers at me, and to be on the receiving end of that, it's the coolest thing. I just go like, it's cool. And they all hit you, and it's. It's so much fun. And that's the thing. Like, we're in the business of wonder and fun and smiles and joy. And I go to so many lectures where it's interesting and there's knowledge there, but I don't leave afterwards, like, with a little bit of a belly ache because I laughed so hard. I. I been inspired. But, like, I want to. I want to have a good time. In my lecture, I always try to make it like a show. So there's. It's informative, it's entertaining, and hopefully inspiring. Those are the. Those are the three things I try to hit. [00:57:34] Speaker B: Yeah, it was. It was a highlight, and I didn't know that I was going to enjoy. Like, I went in. I went in with eyes. Like, I didn't know what I was going to expect. I was like, oh, family show. [00:57:44] Speaker A: Okay. [00:57:44] Speaker B: I'm. I'm sitting in the back with. I'm sitting in the back with all the greatest people in the world. Abby's on my right. You've got. Chris is there. And, you know, I'm sitting next to Andy Gladwin. Andy. Andy Gladwin's right there. I'm just like, we're all sitting in the back and I'm just watching. I'm like, oh, my God, the show is insane. Like, it was so good. I was. I'm like, the tricks are great. If I was a kid, I would have been blown away. Like, and the way that they were all. You commanded their attention because, I mean, you definitely have an educator's. Like, you know, you know how to educate. [00:58:13] Speaker A: It's. [00:58:13] Speaker B: It's. You know, we could talk all day about that, but, like, it comes across in the kids shows. There's no, There's. Everyone is laser focused. You know, how to pick the right kids, how to get them, how to maneuver them. And it's just. It was. It was a great show. I thoroughly enjoyed the family show. I mean, it was. It was great. So thank you just so much. I mean, we could talk for probably about another hour about kids show, but I won't. [00:58:36] Speaker A: That. [00:58:37] Speaker B: That's for the next episode. That's for when we do our. When I come on your version that will be announced that we. I can't wait. [00:58:43] Speaker A: I'm doing it. I'm doing it. [00:58:45] Speaker B: You're going to do. He's going to be doing a thing and everyone needs to watch, and I'm. Can't wait. So you'll. [00:58:50] Speaker A: I'll. [00:58:50] Speaker B: As soon as you. As soon as you have it in the can and you're ready to. I'll be the. I'll be the first one watching. [00:58:56] Speaker A: Yeah, I'm excited about it. But the thing for me with family shows, I want to touch on that and thank you for the kind words. It means a lot because I take it seriously. I always feel like people do kids shows as a means to an end. Like, they're. They're like, I want to be Doing this kind of a show. So I'll do kid shows till I get there, or I'll do kid shows to pay the bills until I can buy the stuff I need to do the show I want to do. Like, they don't do it. I don't want to say they don't do it for the right reason, but they're not doing it because they want to change a kid's life. And every time I go on stage for a show for kids, I'm like, I have a. I have an opportunity to change the trajectory. Trajectory of a person's life. Why would you take that so lightly? And just do the coloring book like you're. You're missing out on it. And in most shows, I try to teach a trick. In the show I did at dc, I did not teach a trick. But in a lot of my shows, I will do a trick where the kids get to experience a magic trick that they do in their seats, or I'll explain a trick. And I always give away something that shows them how to do a trick afterwards because I don't want them to leave going, that was cool. I wish I knew how to do something. No, no. Here you go. You get this. [01:00:04] Speaker B: That's brilliant. [01:00:05] Speaker A: Yeah. This dollar bill, it's got magic tricks on the back. You can do magic. I've probably performed some version of the show you saw 15,000 times. I do. I did a lot of performances. At one point, I was doing like four or five hundred shows a year every year for like ten years. And. And people like, you can't have. That's like more than one a day. And I'm like, there were summer camps where I was doing nine shows a day for five days straight, because I'd show up. And they can't get all the kids in a space. So it's like, I'm doing shows for 20 kids. They're 40 minutes a piece. And I'm there for like eight hours with like one 30 minute break, like to the point where I brought an assistant. And their job was to set the second show so that as the first one goes out, they just wheel the second one on and go up to the other wings, reset that show so that we were just going back and forth with the two shows so we could get to the other side because there was no time to reset. But that being said, I was so messy in the beginning, and now it's not just that I'm good at picking kids. I'm good at knowing when that kid comes up where they are emotionally and where they are, confidence wise, being on stage. Because some kids, you can kind of like, you can razz them a little, you can have some fun. And other kids are like a deer in headlights. And for those kids, you have to be the person who's, who's protecting them from the audience because they're scared of the audience, they're scared of life. So you got to be like, hey, I'm here to make sure that we're going to have fun. And other kids, you can kind of be like, you're a smart alec. All right, well, I'm going to have some fun with you. And that kid wants to have that interaction. The kid who's shy does not want that interaction because now what happens is you're a bully. So I'm not just good at picking kids. I'm good at understanding where they are and being empathetic to what they need to have a good time. And that's, that's something I pride myself on. I spent a lot of time talking to kids and asking questions and, you know, you get a feel for. You're looking at a sea of a hundred children. There's one kid who's gonna sit like this. Don't pull that kid up. And the kid that's jumping out of their seat going, ah, don't pull that kid up. There's like a happy medium. Anyway, I digress. [01:02:17] Speaker B: That's awesome. [01:02:17] Speaker A: Yeah. [01:02:18] Speaker B: You, you, have you ever written a book or gonna write a book on kid shows? [01:02:22] Speaker A: So the, the long short is I, I, I wrote one. It's called wonder whimsy and warm fuzzies. And it's, it's about ushering in the next generation of young magicians. And that doesn't mean it's not specifically somebody who's already a magician. It means every kid should do some magic at any point in their life. Every kid should play T ball, play soccer, be in a play, sing in the chorus, try chess club, do a magic trick. 100%. Every kid should do that and they should hate most of it. But it should be an opportunity because you'll learn hand eye coordination from any sport. Right? You'll learn strategies from chess or any kind of, you know, or, or even also sports. You'll learn scripting and, and stage presence from any kind of theatrical production. You'll learn, you know, vocal training from singing. Right. From being in the band, you learn about coordination. You learn about working as a team. You learn all those things. Magic is the only thing you learn about empathy like that. That's a thing where you're teaching kids that if they just run through the trick, it, it kind of works. You'll fool the person, but they won't experience magic. They won't experience what you experienced when I did it because I cared. I cared about what you thought, I cared about how you feel, and I care about how you took in what I was doing. And that's the skill that so many people don't get in the magic community that it's not their fault it wasn't taught to them. They bought the deck of cards, they learned the secret, they performed the secret, they fooled the next person. They assumed it was good. I want to be the guy who teaches them what's important, which is you know, the other person exists. They're doing all the heavy lifting, you know how the trick works, you're not fooling anyone. They, you have to make them suspend their disbelief long enough to experience astonishment. And that's a lot of words to explain to a seven year old when they're doing the mind reading crayon. So you have to find ways to explain that. And I have, you know, I've developed tools over the years talking to lots of teachers, child psychologists. And if I wrote a book on kids magic, it, the book Lit. It's, you know, 30, 40 pages. It's a set of lecture notes. It's more about teaching how to observe and teaching observing yourself and teaching how to observe. It's about creating a connection with the student as well as the audience and teaching how to create those connections. Making eye contact, asking somebody's name. It's a lot of the boring psychology that I don't know, that I don't know how well it would be received because I feel like they just want routines. They want, you know, they want to open a book, get a routine, know how to do the cut and restored rope, get all my jokes and recite it verbatim. And that's, that's, that's not what I'm interested in. That's not what I'm interested in teaching. There's, there's so many books with so many great routines. There are incredible writers for kids show magic. So I don't know, we'll see. [01:05:28] Speaker B: I mean I, I can always go for a nice lecture notebook, but it's. [01:05:33] Speaker A: Called Wonder Whimsy and Warm Fuzzies. It's not on Cressy yet because it was just an exclusive for the, for the summer season of lectures. It's going to go up, actually, it's supposed to go up in today's 29th, it's supposed to go up in three days. All right, I got to get the photos of that up. Yes. I'm going to be putting it up on the website on November 1st. [01:05:50] Speaker B: Fantastic. All right, I'm, I'm looking forward to that because I kind of like, I wasn't like huge into lecture notes till I got one and then I'm like, oh, no, actually, I love them. I love lecture. I didn't know how great they are. [01:06:03] Speaker A: So the thing I love about lecture notes is it's like a bite sized bit of knowledge that you can, you can get a concept or an idea and it's, it's usually easily digestible. And that's what, you know. I love lecture notes when they're like 20 pages. I'm like, oh, there's only three tricks in here. Okay. But I can read three tricks. When you get a book that's like this thick, you go, it's going to take me months to get through it, to work through it all. And if I get halfway through, I'm like, this is just, it's not, I'm not getting the bit that I want. The bit that I want is always at the end. Always at the end. And there was a set of lecture notes by Jim Steinmeier called Reminding and Deceiving. And, and there was, it was seven or eight tricks. And there was one, it was a jelly bean jar prediction thing that was just Chef's Kiss. And then it was, it was in Magic magazine, I think, shortly thereafter. And it was, that was one of the ones where I was like, I like lecture notes. Oh, and Vito Lupo's lecture notes. He was the first set of lecture notes I ever got. And the best bit of information, he was like, you want a secret to having great stage presence? Take Coca Cola, put it on a paper towel and rub it on the bottom of your shoes. Because when you're on the stage, you won't, you won't slip, you'll, you'll have a solid footing. And I was like, that's the greatest piece of advice I could ever ask for because I was working a lot of gymnasium floors in elementary schools and, and you know, I was working in places where I'm like, I'm just gonna slip, slide all over in my dress shoes. And that gave me footing and just knowing that you've got solid footing and like, you're not going anywhere. You stand different. Like, that's genius. That's in lecture notes. I wouldn't have found that in A book this thick? [01:07:48] Speaker B: No, not at all. That's just that, that's not. Yeah, that's wild. [01:07:52] Speaker A: Yeah. I was like, oh, Coca Cola. Who knew? [01:07:55] Speaker B: Who knew? All right, are you ready for the rapid fire round? [01:07:58] Speaker A: Yeah, let's do it. [01:07:59] Speaker B: All right, let's get. [01:08:01] Speaker A: Okay. [01:08:04] Speaker B: What's your go to guilty pleasure snack before or after a show? [01:08:08] Speaker A: Cheese. [01:08:09] Speaker B: If you could perform for any historical figure, who would it be and what trick would you show them? [01:08:12] Speaker A: Well, that's a good one. Lucille Ball. [01:08:15] Speaker B: That's my favorite one. [01:08:17] Speaker A: Yes. What would you. [01:08:18] Speaker B: What trick would you do? [01:08:19] Speaker A: So she was friends with Orson Welles, so she knew magic. I would probably. I would probably want to teach her something she could do. I would probably do something like the mind reading crayon, and I would teach her how to do it. [01:08:31] Speaker B: Awesome. What's one trick you wish you had invented? [01:08:33] Speaker A: That's a good one, too, I'm going to say. I mean, my personal favorite is the origami by Jim Steinmeier. I just think that's a really great, A great piece. Great concept. It's a puzzle more than anything else. And I think a lot of guys present it as. This is a puzzle. You'll never figure it out. And it's so deceptive. You go, yeah. Nope, they're never going to figure it out. But, but when it's performed. Well, it's one of my favorite tricks. I. And I really like that one. [01:08:58] Speaker B: If you weren't a magician, what job would you most likely be doing today? [01:09:01] Speaker A: Teacher. [01:09:02] Speaker B: Oh, I could see that. [01:09:03] Speaker A: A hundred percent. Yeah. [01:09:04] Speaker B: I mean, you're already a teacher. You're just, you're just teaching a different skill set, which is. Something like that is sorely needed. [01:09:11] Speaker A: Fine arts teacher, probably. [01:09:13] Speaker B: Oh, okay. I could see that. Teaching kids how to make mouth coils in school. [01:09:17] Speaker A: Painting, sculpture, something along those lines. [01:09:19] Speaker B: Awesome. And when you're not doing magic, what's your favorite way to unwind? [01:09:22] Speaker A: More cheese. [01:09:23] Speaker B: More cheese. [01:09:24] Speaker A: Yes. [01:09:25] Speaker B: I, I, it's true. [01:09:27] Speaker A: You know, I love nothing more than a charcuterie board. Yes. And just two nights ago, Colleen came home from work, and I was like, you hungry? And she's like, I'm really not. I'm just too tired. I don't want to make anything. You know, I had, I had a late lunch. I'll be fine. I was like, cool, because I'm going to just make a little cheese board. She was like, can we watch whatever TV show. The British Bake Off. British Bake Off. British Bake off. And have a charcuterie board and Again, it's like lecture notes. You just need a little snack. You just need a little something with a little bit of variety. And there's something about a nice cheese board or a nice charcuterie board or a crudite or something where you're like, there's a little bit of flavor. It seems like it's like it's lunchables for adults. You know, it's like, yes, it's fun finger food that we can lie to ourselves and say it's healthy. Look, high quality cheese. There's vegetables here. Last. Last time I did sun dried tomatoes. That's a. That's a fruit. [01:10:15] Speaker B: But so. [01:10:16] Speaker A: Yeah, there you go. [01:10:16] Speaker B: Yeah, that's definitely. That's definitely healthy because it's fruit. So you can definitely eat it. Yeah, yeah. Wisdom is no, knowledge is knowing that tomatoes are fruit. Wisdom is knowing that you shouldn't put it in a fruit salad. So there's the difference. And that. That was the last question. [01:10:36] Speaker A: John. [01:10:37] Speaker B: Or as your. As Abby says, you have to say your name all at one. [01:10:41] Speaker A: John Reed. [01:10:41] Speaker B: It's never John. John Reed. John Reed. Thank you for sharing your story. From magic shops to Kresi coils and beyond, creativity can take on so many forms, especially when it's fueled by joy and imagination. Everyone listening, go check out John Reed's work. And as always, remember that magic starts with a story. Thank you, John Reed. I loved it. Thank you. [01:11:02] Speaker A: Thank you. Thanks for having me. This was so much fun. Yeah, it was. [01:11:05] Speaker B: So we'll see you next time. [01:11:07] Speaker A: See you next time. [01:11:09] Speaker B: That.