The former “America’s Got Talent” contestant has mesmerized nine pro football teams, boosting his popularity and the rates he can charge for performances—to the tune of roughly $10 million in pretax earnings for 2024.
Read the full story on Forbes: https://www.forbes.com/sites/justinbirnbaum/2024/12/25/mentalist-oz-pearlman-interview-americas-got-talent/
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Category
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LifestyleTranscript
00:00Magic is a cheat card in life. It's a cheat code. I can go anywhere in the world.
00:04I don't care if I know the language, I don't care if I know the people, the culture, nothing.
00:07I have a way to amaze you, and amazement is universal.
00:21So, I want to start kind of at the beginning, you know, what was your childhood like?
00:24I know you were born in Israel and you moved here very young.
00:26So, what was it like kind of coming over here and growing up?
00:29I moved here when I was three, and I don't know, I don't have any other way to put it.
00:33I loved being here. I think I had a pretty happy childhood.
00:36I had two older sisters that were twins, eight years older, that I think I drove crazy, if you ask them.
00:41I was somewhat of an annoying kid, always very obsessive.
00:45So, I think with anything I got into, it was never 80%, 90%, it was 120%.
00:50And magic was the same, let me tell you. When I got into that craft, I got kind of obsessed.
00:56Did you ever envision this career?
00:58Never.
00:58How did you get exposed?
00:59Never. This is like, it's a good hobby for a doctor, is what a Jewish mother would say.
01:03A magician, is that really? They're like, no, really, what do you actually do for work?
01:07I did not know that this could be a profession. I didn't even have that model.
01:11You know, when you watch a movie star on TV, you don't think like, I'm going to be the movie star.
01:15Maybe some people do, I never thought that.
01:18And I just did not know this was on the multiple choice, you know, until it was.
01:23So, who was the person who did expose you to this kind of?
01:26So, I went on a cruise when I was 13 years old.
01:29That was the first cruise we've ever been on.
01:30And we saw a magician on this cruise ship.
01:32I had never seen a magician live before, not even at like a kid's birthday.
01:35Blown away. I was absolutely shell-shocked.
01:37I'm like, what? I was stalking this guy on the boat.
01:40He didn't have anywhere to go, he's stuck on the boat.
01:42And he brought me on stage, I think my dad bribed him.
01:44And from that moment on, I got home, hit the ground running.
01:47I went to the library, I checked out every single book, cover to cover.
01:50I went to Borders, they don't even have, they're not in business anymore.
01:53I checked out every Borders book.
01:55I bought every Borders book, you know, I saved up money.
01:57I started doing kids' birthdays.
01:59I just kind of started learning how to do sleight-of-hand magic.
02:03Do you remember your first trick?
02:05I remember the first trick I commercially bought.
02:07Because some tricks are sleight-of-hand, where you learn moves.
02:10And some tricks are gimmicks, which is something like you buy a trick.
02:13The first trick I ever bought is a deck of cards that's called the rising card deck.
02:18Where you pick one out, you put it back, and it rises up out of the deck.
02:22I'm sworn to secrecy, but I bought it.
02:25They bring you into a kind of a back room, and they show you how to do it.
02:28And I was hooked.
02:30So, you get exposed to this, you get interested, it becomes a hobby.
02:33You know, you're doing this.
02:34Semi-pro, I mean, I was working it.
02:36Yeah, you...
02:36This is Forbes, baby, I had to make that money.
02:38Carrying around a deck of cards.
02:40You get to college, University of Michigan, and then you go work at Merrill Lynch.
02:44Obviously, you know, you weren't thinking of being a magician full-time at that point.
02:48What kind of happened in corporate America?
02:50Why the pivot? Why the change?
02:52So, I was always doing this on the side.
02:54Very important.
02:54I was performing the entire time I was in college to pay my tuition, to pay my rent, to pay for my books.
02:59So, I always was doing this.
03:00I had a couple other side businesses as well, because my folks had gotten divorced.
03:05They moved back to Israel, and I was self-sufficient.
03:07Nobody was paying these bills for me.
03:09So, I was always using magic as what I would describe as a hustle.
03:13It's the way I met people.
03:14It's the way I networked.
03:16Even to get my job on Wall Street for my internship on my resume.
03:20What's that bullet point say?
03:21Justin said, professional magician.
03:23If you think that after the end of every single interview, people then go,
03:26what do you mean professional magician?
03:28And I go, oh, you know what?
03:28If we have time at the end, let me show you a little something.
03:31I feel bad for the person after me.
03:33Every one of my interviews ran like 15 minutes over.
03:35I'm doing this trick, this trick.
03:37They're getting the other people in.
03:38Everything was like a domino effect.
03:39Like the other interviews were pushed later, because they wanted to see me.
03:42And at the end, you get that wink and the nod of like, don't worry, you'll be hearing from us later.
03:46Because you win people over.
03:47It's just a fascinating thing to do.
03:50Magic is a cheat card in life.
03:52It's a cheat code.
03:53I can go anywhere in the world.
03:54I don't care if I know the language.
03:55I don't care if I know the people, the culture, nothing.
03:57I have a way to amaze you.
03:59And amazement is universal.
04:01Laughter and amazement transcends all boundaries.
04:04And so that's what I was doing on the side.
04:07So when I worked on Wall Street, literally, I was doing magic every day of the week also.
04:11That's how I met other people at my firm.
04:14That's how I actually ended up doing a show for my company, for the CFO of Merrill Lynch at the time.
04:20And this is kind of like a coming-of-age story.
04:21He didn't know who I was.
04:23He thought I was a professional magician.
04:25And so at one point, I did a trick where I turned dollars into hundreds.
04:28And he goes, oh my god, we got to get you working here.
04:30And I'm like, I do work here, actually.
04:32And he thought I was BSing him.
04:33And you know, a flippant comment.
04:35He goes, what are you doing working here?
04:36You know, what the hell are you doing working here?
04:37Literally, so he said, what the hell are you doing working here?
04:39And I said, what am I doing working here?
04:41Like in my mind.
04:42And I quit the next month.
04:43I put in my notice, and I decided to pursue this as a full-time career.
04:47You know, you can't jump in the deep end if you're just dipping your toe in.
04:51I needed to be hungry.
04:52I need to go for it.
04:53So as you said before, you know, you're not an overnight success.
04:56This is 20 years in the making.
04:58Seriously.
04:58You quit your job.
04:59You go out and do this.
05:00You know, a colleague of yours in the business said you did everything from bar mitzvahs to places where your feet stick to the floor.
05:05So many bar mitzvahs.
05:07How hard was it climbing up the magic business?
05:09And what was your breakthrough moment?
05:12I don't know if it was hard because I've always done something I enjoy.
05:16I'm not like digging ditches.
05:17I'm not a funeral director.
05:18My job is literally to bring joy to others, right?
05:21So it was never hard in that sense, but it was hard learning how to differentiate yourself from the masses.
05:27What sets you apart?
05:28How do you brand yourself, right?
05:29Think of any business.
05:30You're selling a widget.
05:31What's better?
05:32So I had to learn really quickly that either I need to deliver a service different than anyone else or better than everyone else or both ideally.
05:40And so that's what I'm talking about.
05:41How do you set yourself apart?
05:42And I think it took years to realize what it was, what that secret sauce was for me.
05:47And then my breakthrough moment, I mean, undeniably, was being on America's Got Talent.
05:52I was on that show almost 10 years ago now, which is like, wow, crazy to think back.
05:57But that is also when TV was still really up.
05:59You know, everyone's watching TV.
06:01It's a weekly experience.
06:02Now you've got streamers.
06:03You discount.
06:042015, you didn't have Hulu and Netflix and Apple and all.
06:07You had Netflix, but that was barely it.
06:09It was just coming up.
06:10So people were still watching TV, 15 million every week.
06:13And you were getting that huge momentum boost, that rocket fuel that you just light on fire, where every stage that I got to every round took me to another level where I felt it day in day out.
06:24Like, I'd be recognized on the street.
06:26People were like, oh my God, you're the guy.
06:28You're Oz The Mentalist.
06:29And so, usually Oz The Mentalist because my name is a nightmare, but I digress.
06:34And so, that really not only did it expose me to more people, but it gave me confidence internally.
06:40Because when you start performing in front of 15 million people live on national TV, at Radio City Musical, you start to believe in yourself in kind of a way that you didn't otherwise.
06:48I started realizing, hey, I think I'm good at this.
06:51But now you're getting the external validation from people saying, you're amazing at this.
06:55You start to really believe it.
06:57I'm sure, you know, obviously not winning.
07:00Little bit of a disappointment.
07:01Honestly, I kid you not, at the time, zero disappointment.
07:04Really?
07:05Zero.
07:06And it's because I never expected to get to the next round, much less win.
07:09And I am a competitive SOB.
07:11If you race me at a marathon, I'm going to stare you down and be like, I'm going to win today.
07:14But for some reason at that show, I just realized that every next round is more exposure.
07:20And shockingly, I'd spoken to several winners before.
07:23And if you win that show, I know you don't want to know the details, but the contract is much more limiting than if you don't win.
07:29You get all the benefits without any of the downsides.
07:32You get all pros, no cons.
07:34So I'd actually, I didn't care if I won.
07:35I was just happy to keep making it.
07:37Would I have loved to win?
07:38Yes.
07:38But I was not disappointed.
07:40I swear to you.
07:41Is that when the big-ticket celebrities started coming calling?
07:44You know, you could see you've performed for a ton of people.
07:48Well, thank you.
07:49You know, it came kind of throughout.
07:50It's in spurts.
07:51I had moments all throughout.
07:53Before I was even on America's Got Talent, I used to know the Friars Club people here.
07:57And I would do Friars Club roasts and meet celebrities there and do, you know, sports teams.
08:01I was always a hustler.
08:03I'm one of those people who, you get me in a room, I've got chutzpah.
08:07I will find a way, if there's someone there, to meet them, to create an impression, to create that moment, amaze them, and have that turn into two, you know, opportunities.
08:16And those two to four.
08:17And I always want to leverage and leverage effectively so that you continue getting momentum.
08:23I've seen so many careers where people hit a certain point, and where do they become?
08:27Oh, you on America's Got Talent 10 years ago, right?
08:29I don't want that to be what you say about me.
08:30It'll be on my obituary, but it's not going to be the top line.
08:33There's going to be a lot more things above it.
08:35When did the sports world come calling?
08:36Because, you know, you and NFL locker rooms and meetings and training camps has become, you know, pretty ubiquitous.
08:42So it blew up about three years ago.
08:45I met Adam Schefter, who I've known for well over a decade and a half, who's honestly one of the most, he's the NFL insider, not a, the NFL insider, if you're into football.
08:55And I'd perform at some of his personal parties, his son's bar mitzvah, his daughter's bar mitzvah, his 50th birthday.
09:01And at his daughter's bar mitzvah, all the ESPN top brass were there.
09:05And that was my moment, you know, might as well have been like a showcase.
09:07And I blew them away.
09:09I did something tied into football.
09:10And I said, this is it right here.
09:12This is my pitch.
09:13And I think they bit.
09:14They said, you know what?
09:15This works so well here in this room.
09:17How do we take this and give this to all of our audiences and show it on the biggest stage with NFL?
09:24And I think that's where it really took off.
09:25That year, we went to, I think, three or four training camps, different teams.
09:29We dripped them out, I think, really effectively throughout the season, where you saw one each every two or three weeks.
09:35So it built that relevance of like, you see me once, you're like, who's that guy?
09:38You see him a second time.
09:38Oh, my God.
09:39Third time, you're like, when are we going to see another one of these clips with, oh, is the mentalist?
09:43And I think it hit, it hit that sweet spot of people getting to see those football players act like kids again.
09:49And there's something about that, that if you're a fan, you see them on the field.
09:54But when do you get to see them like they're sitting in your living room, acting kind of a fool and freaking out, run out of the room, screaming?
10:00I love that, that real human emotion.
10:02And I think people connect with it.
10:04How does mentalism work?
10:05Okay.
10:06Can you really read minds?
10:07Can I?
10:08I can read, no.
10:08So what is mentalism?
10:10What is it really?
10:10It's magic of the mind.
10:12So what I've spent 30 years doing is learning how you think.
10:18Seriously, how do you think?
10:20And so let me give you an example.
10:21What do you do for a living?
10:22What do you do for a living?
10:24I would say that you try to get inside people's heads also.
10:27You want to get an answer to a question that they haven't given a hundred times before.
10:31So it's not the same cookie cutter article.
10:33So what you do is you analyze people in a certain way.
10:36So if I were to give you this question, it's a great question.
10:38Sure.
10:39If you could sit down in front of anyone right now in this moment, and I say impulse, first person that pops in your head, it'd be near instant.
10:46Am I right?
10:47When I position the question, you know who you're going to think of first.
10:50Yeah.
10:51But so would someone who knows you well.
10:53That's why I would never do that.
10:54I would never do the first person because everyone has social media.
10:57You might have posted about this person.
10:59Before I walked into this studio, right, had we ever spoken or met a word in our life?
11:04I want the viewer watching this to know.
11:06No.
11:07Under oath in court.
11:08Is that correct?
11:08Before I got here?
11:09That is correct.
11:09We didn't know each other.
11:10Yeah.
11:11So if I were to position the question, the first person you think of, I feel it's too obvious.
11:15Boring.
11:16If I said change your mind once, second person, then it becomes a struggle.
11:20Third person, you go, oh my, who would I do?
11:22Fourth person, right, you start hitting mental blocks.
11:25Let me ask you a question because I saw you nod on the fourth person, and I want them to know.
11:30When I ask you, think of mind, change your mind, change your mind, change your mind,
11:32you change your mind three times before you landed at this person.
11:35Is that right?
11:35Yeah.
11:37I would say that for you, given your focus at Forbes is sports, you would have leaned into sports.
11:42That's my gut.
11:43So I think the first person you thought of had to be sports.
11:45Did you change your mind on the second or third to someone not sports?
11:48Maybe.
11:49But now, you slip back into your comfort zone, muscle memory.
11:54I think it's an athlete.
11:55Is there, do we mind, there's a pad of paper I set aside.
11:58Sorry, I didn't know we'd do this.
12:00Thank you so much.
12:01And a marker.
12:04That laugh tells me everything.
12:06Next, would you have just gone for someone great?
12:10I think you would have gone for someone great.
12:12Not on the come up, I think you want greatness.
12:14Forbes is all about money.
12:15So is there a money angle involved in this?
12:17I think there has to be.
12:18There has to be.
12:20Is it a big contract?
12:21There's something.
12:24Close your eyes for one moment.
12:29Open your eyes.
12:31I'm right about sports.
12:32Is that right?
12:33That's correct.
12:33Of course, I knew it.
12:34And did you change one of the people, you changed your mind.
12:36You changed your mind multiple times.
12:37Was one of the people not sports?
12:38That's correct.
12:39I knew it.
12:39See, I told you.
12:40You slipped back into a comfy sweatshirt at the end.
12:43That's why I kept making you change your mind.
12:44You said, what's mentalism?
12:45Mentalism is pushing people the way you want.
12:48Reverse engineering the human mind.
12:49Would you say that the sport this person plays is your favorite or not really?
12:54Yeah, I'd say so.
12:56Close your eyes one more time.
13:05I'm just going to show the cameras.
13:06Keep your eyes closed for me.
13:09Open your eyes.
13:10I need them to know.
13:11Because when I watch these clips, the first thing I say is, this is set up.
13:14He must have set this up with him a week ago.
13:16There is no chance that I could have known that you would change your mind twice,
13:21three times, four times before we did this.
13:22Is that correct?
13:23It's correct.
13:24We had never spoken before you got in here.
13:25Tell us all, what sport were you thinking of?
13:29Baseball.
13:31And oh, we like a winner.
13:32World Series winner.
13:33In fact, who are you thinking of?
13:34Who's sitting in this chair instead of me?
13:35Shohei Ohtani.
13:36Shohei Ohtani.
13:41I have no idea how you just...
13:45Well done.
13:45Well done.
13:46And you know what Justin said to me before we got in here?
13:48He goes, it's all about money.
13:49And he said a challenge.
13:50He goes, you know what we should have done?
13:51We had a billionaire in here the other day.
13:52He should have gotten his ATM pin code.
13:53Would anybody know your ATM pin code?
13:56Maybe my dad, but years ago.
13:58If you call him after this, I want you to call your dad and say, do you remember my ATM pin code?
14:03If your dad knew it 100%, do you know what I would know?
14:06That it's something meaningful.
14:08It'd be a birthday.
14:09It'd be a birthday.
14:09If you're like, oh, my jersey number when I played baseball as a kid.
14:12You know, maybe I was number seven.
14:13Seven, seven, seven, seven.
14:15He would know it.
14:15So the fact that you said that means that it's somehow random.
14:18Give me a random fake four-digit code.
14:21Don't say your real one.
14:22Yell a fake code right now.
14:24Four, three, nine, seven.
14:26Four, three, nine, seven.
14:29Okay, here's what I think.
14:31Isn't that weird?
14:33You stumbled.
14:34You messed up a little.
14:35I think you definitely included one of your real digits.
14:37You messed up a little.
14:38But it's never the first one.
14:40No one ever does the same first one because they feel like it's going to get away.
14:43I guarantee you on my life, your real ATM pin code does not start with a four, does it?
14:47It does not.
14:47No one does that.
14:48I'm letting you know.
14:48That's how the human mind works.
14:50You said four, three, nine, seven.
14:53Have you ever written down this ATM pin?
14:55Have you ever said it out loud to somebody?
14:57Have you shared this with anybody other than maybe your dad ever in your life?
14:59No.
15:00Is there any way that I could have looked this up online or found this out or 0%?
15:040% chance.
15:07Okay.
15:08I think you made it close.
15:10First number is a five, isn't it?
15:12Yes.
15:12Yes.
15:14Four, then three.
15:14The three is wrong.
15:15Odd number, odd number.
15:17Odd number, odd number.
15:18I think we have evens because you switched them.
15:21Rapid fire.
15:22Are you going to be mad if everybody knows your code?
15:24This one, the three goes there.
15:25Five, six, four, three is your ATM pin code, isn't it?
15:28Yes, it is.
15:34I'm speechless.
15:35There is a Wells Fargo one block away.
15:37Let's go right now.
15:38Let's go.
15:38I'm cleaning this guy out.
15:41I'm going to drop the mic, everybody.
15:42That's it for me.
15:45Okay.
15:47How does your creative process work?
15:48How do you-
15:49The shower and when I'm running.
15:51Honest to God, my best ideas are when I go out for a run and somehow in the shower,
15:56best Amazon purchase of the year.
15:57I bought a waterproof notepad that I have with suction cups,
16:00and I swear to God, I write down notes in the shower when it comes to me.
16:04It's when I'm not on my phone.
16:05So my creative process is I start with an ending and I work backwards.
16:10The end of the movie is what I start with.
16:11What is the effect I want my audience to have?
16:14And then I try to figure out how I could do it.
16:16Why do you resonate so well with high-performance athletes?
16:18I mean, you've really become kind of a popular presence among the NFL and other sports.
16:22So why?
16:23How do you get in their heads?
16:24So, you know, one of my really big tips and tricks is I visualize success.
16:29And if you watch my clips over and over, now that you know this,
16:32notice how much I tell people to visualize things.
16:34The same way, I like the way knowing how people think, right?
16:38The interesting part about that is how could I have possibly known
16:41that you started sports, went to so many non-sports camps?
16:44Do you understand? You know how crazy that was.
16:46But anyone watching this, like how could you have known not only what he thought of,
16:49but when he changed his mind several times?
16:51So I love thinking and realizing how people think.
16:54That's my job, the tapestry.
16:56The fun part for me is that it doesn't always go right.
16:59I swear to you, not every show is right and perfect.
17:02And that's fun because it keeps me on the edge of my seat.
17:04If I was right every time, this would be boring.
17:06It would be boring to the viewer.
17:08People sense danger when I do what I do.
17:11They go, what if it went wrong?
17:13And that's what keeps you on the edge of your seat.
17:14When you drive by a car wreck, it's internal.
17:17You can't help it. You want to look.
17:18You hope everyone's okay, but man, you got to see what happened, right?
17:21Everyone rubbernecks when they go, oh my God, look at that crash.
17:23It's in our DNA, fight or flight.
17:26So to answer your question, what resonates?
17:29I think what resonates with these high-performance athletes is they know it's real.
17:32They know it's real and it's different than a card trick.
17:35I love card tricks.
17:36I don't want to crap on magic.
17:37I love magic.
17:38I started as a magician.
17:40But what's different between me and magicians is what I do is real in the sense of there is no safety net.
17:47If you do a card trick right now and you put it back, I've practiced the moves for 20 years.
17:51I will find that card, Justin, sleight of hand.
17:54But with what I do, when you just think of a card, it can 100% go wrong.
17:58And I think that is what draws in the athletes because what they do is also it's live, it's real.
18:04And sports, nobody DVRs a game to watch it the next game.
18:08You need to see it in the moment.
18:09That's why sports just keeps growing and growing and growing because it's a shared experience,
18:13communal experience in a world where everything now can be streamed.
18:16You can't stream sports the next day.
18:18You want to live it.
18:18You want to live it and experience it.
18:20That's what mine is.
18:21It's an experience.
18:22You know, you've had such incredible success.
18:24You know, you have a huge audience in the corporate market.
18:26You had told me you're going to probably hit 145 events this year.
18:30What's the future look like?
18:31What do you plan to keep going?
18:33You know, I'm blessed.
18:34I have such gratitude that I'm literally living the dream.
18:36If you had talked to me 10 years ago, I'd be pinching myself 20 years ago.
18:41I'd lie.
18:41I'd say when I quit my job on Wall Street, I worked for Merrill Lynch.
18:44I quit the next day.
18:46I wake up 10 a.m.
18:47No boss.
18:48I sit on my couch and do you know who's going to make me a star?
18:50No one that doesn't exist.
18:52There is no someone calls you and sees you in a subway and goes, you're a star.
18:57It's BS.
18:58Pardon my French bullshit.
18:59You make your future in showbiz.
19:01There's no path to success.
19:02So I think the answer to your question is I already feel like I hit the jackpot.
19:06So everything from now is gravy and I operate under that kind of mentality.
19:10So what's next?
19:10I can tell you I'm writing a book that I'm super excited about where I'm giving my secrets away
19:15because you don't want to be a mentalist.
19:1799.99% of people don't want to be a mentalist.
19:19But what if you could use the skills I just showed you?
19:21For 30 years in your life, at home, at work, with your boss, with your family, with your
19:27friends to read people more effectively.
19:29What if that could give you a 10%, a 20% edge in achieving success?
19:33For 15 bucks, buy that book because I promise you it will.
19:36I'm working on a TV series that I've been pitching for years that I finally think, fingers
19:41crossed, we've got a deal and I want to make that something exciting that I can really
19:44believe in and just keep doing this stuff with different sports leagues.
19:48Kind of bring what I do to a bigger and bigger and wider audience.
19:52Any plans to slow down?
19:54Sounds like you work quite a bit.
19:55I like to run a lot.
19:56I would like to slow down effectively in that I'm trying to work smarter, not harder.
20:00So whereas you quantified how many shows I did, I'm not looking at that number at the end
20:04of the year or my bank account because you can always get more money.
20:07You can never get more time.
20:09And so I'm trying to be much more selective in doing things that I think will build more
20:14of a brand and that will help me establish what I do in a bigger way rather than taking
20:20small things that I would have done a few years ago.
20:23Now I'm trying to be much more strategic and smart.
20:26But you know what?
20:26I bring joy to people and it's very hard for me to say no.
20:29I told you on the way over here, made my day.
20:32My Uber driver gets in the car.
20:33This never happens, by the way.
20:34I get recognized in context.
20:35When I'm in a suit like you, they're like, you're always the mentalist.
20:37When I'm in civilian wear, I look like a Jewish attorney, honestly.
20:41So the guy goes right away, gets in the car, goes, you're always the mentalist.
20:45And right when we left, he told me he's a huge soccer fan.
20:48I go, don't say another word.
20:49And I wrote down, I go, think of any soccer player right now, any soccer player.
20:52And I hand it to him.
20:53And right as I leave, I go, what was the name of the person?
20:56And he said, it was Erwin Holland.
20:57It's the guy from Manchester City.
20:59It's a forward.
21:00And I go, keep it.
21:01And right when I walked out, as I closed the door, I was like seeing him open it.
21:05And it was just, and you know what?
21:07I didn't make any money.
21:08I don't care what happens.
21:09That moment, I believe he will talk about for years to come.
21:13And that's the greatest joy of what I have, which is that kind of superpower to take somebody
21:18who I don't know if he was having a good day, a bad day, whatever, and give them that moment.
21:22And I'm lucky that I can do it.
21:23And I try to do that, hopefully, for millions.
21:26Rose Perlman, thank you so much for being here.
21:27Thank you for having me.