Laughing With A Good Liar (Guest: Brian Curry)

Meet today’s guest, Brian Curry, magician and mentalist.  

For over two decades, Brian has entertained at corporate events and on cruises to every continent.  He earned first place at the 'World Magic Summit' competition, was Washington City Paper's '2022 Performing Artist of the Year' and was dubbed 'DC's Most Honest Con Man'. If you’re in the Washing DC area, you can catch Brian in his amazing and unique Magic show called The Good Liar.

I met Brian in a virtual Eccentric/Clown workshop that we both took with Avner Eisenberg (also known as Avner the Eccentric). 

Join us in today’s episode where we choose to laugh on purpose as an exercise to raise our energy, and hear how Brian got into the magic world as a shy kid. I’m so inspired by Brian’s journey, he follows what feels good and right for him, and is doing what he loves.

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Follow Brian on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/briancurrylies/

Good Liar Tix & Info: https://www.agoodliar.com/ 

About your Host:
Lauren Tatner, founder of Law of Happy, is an inspirational teacher, attorney, author, wellness arts practitioner, and inspirational clown. She is certified as a Reiki Teacher, Consulting Hypnotist, and Meditation Teacher, Laughter Yoga Leader, and Fitness Instructor Specialist. She also trained in Theatre, Dance, Zumba, Voice, Mediation, Public Speaking, Improv, Clown, Comedy, Past Life Regression (with American Psychiatrist, Dr. Brian Weiss), Shamanism, and Qigong.

Lauren has always been fascinated with the mind, body, and spirit connection. She is passionate about teaching the power of laughter, meditation, and movement in a fun and relatable way. When Lauren gives talks and leads workshops in the corporate and private sectors, she uses a unique approach that integrates elements of her diverse skills and experience.

Lauren is the mother of twins and a rescue pup.

- Follow Lauren on IG @TheLawofHappy
- Watch & Laugh with us on YouTube
- Interested in laughing with Lauren on the show or in a customized workshop: Get in touch

Transcript

0:10

Welcome back to the Law of Happy Podcast. I'm your host, Lauren Tattler. I'm an attorney and I teach laughter as an exercise. When we laugh, we feel good, and we raise our energy. This allows more good fun things to flow into our experience. This is the Law of Happy, so let's laugh half fun and practice the law of Happy together. I'm so excited for you to meet today's special guest Brian Curry. Magician and mentalist. For over two decades, Brian is entertained a corporate events and our cruises to every continent. He earned first place at the world magic Senate competition. Was Washington city papers, 2022 performing artists of the year. And was dubbed DC's most honest con men. If you're in the washington dc area you can catch brian in his amazing and unique magic show called the good liar I met Brian a couple of years ago in a virtual eccentric clown workshop That we both took with Avner eisenberg Also known as Avner, the eccentric I was excited to reconnect with brian on my podcast now that we're both officially eccentrics Join us in today's episode where we choose to laugh on purpose as an exercise to raise our energy And hear how brian got into the world of magic as a shy kid I'm so inspired by brian's journey because he follows what feels good and right for him And he's doing what he loves please join me in giving a warm welcome to brian

Lauren: 1:38

Ryan, I am so excited that you're here. Welcome to the Law of Happy podcast, and thank you so much for being our special guest today. Thank you so much

Briand: 1:44

for having me. I'm excited to be here. Yeah, me

Lauren: 1:46

too. I wanna actually maybe start with something that's a little Unconventional and I'll explain. Okay. Because my focus with this with my podcast is different fun tools or techniques to feel good and to raise the energy and all about having fun. I wanna know if we can start with a a simple guided laughter exercise. Just, all right. Cool. Okay. So listen. Okay, because here's the thing there's so many benefits to laughter and the body can't tell the difference. Doesn't know the difference whether we're laughing spontaneously because of humor, comedy, because something makes us laugh like that. Or whether we're simulating the laughter as a form of exercise. And actually when we practice or work our laughter muscle and practice laughing just for the sake of it or for the benefits of it, it actually helps with our grow, our sense of humor and our ability to laugh when we are at a show or we are somewhere where we just wanna let go and have fun So, let's just do the simple exercise so we can feel that Good. Laughter, energy. Okay. I'm excited. We'll do a an introduction, laughter, exercise. So normally I start, but You can start and I'll, tell you why after. Okay. This is what you're gonna do. You're gonna say your name so you're gonna introduce yourself. Just say your name and then if you can tell us somebody who's maybe in the comedy world, who's an inspiration to you. Okay. But then the, actually, the main purpose of the exercise is then after that you laugh. So you say your name. Okay. Tell us an inspiration of yours and the comedy or performing arts world. And then just start laughing. Okay. Just, as an exercise, not because something's funny, but just as an exercise Oh. And before you laugh, it's helpful to take a breath in. So before you start simulating the laughter. Just take a breath in and then just let the laughter flow. As you let the air out, just it helps so that you don't, we don't start coughing and then, oh. And when you when you laugh, I'm gonna join you and laugh with you. And our listeners will join in and laugh with us too.

Briand: 3:48

Okay. All right. Let's do it. Okay. My name is Brian Curry and I think one of the funniest humans on the planet is a magician named Bob Sheets. He's hilarious. I.

Lauren: 4:12

Oh, Brian, thank you for that. I'm gonna go next. But I really appreciate you going first. I wanted you to go first'cause I wanted you to introduce yourself and also. I didn't wanna risk saying the per a person who you might have mentioned. Oh, okay. Okay. But anyway, it was just me overthinking. That's all right. Which I'm trying to stop doing. Okay. So, thank you Brian for, starting leading us off in that, with that exercise. I'm gonna go next. Hi, my name is Lauren Tat and one of my Comedy inspirations is Steve Martin. He's fabulous. Oh my gosh. I find he, inclu incorporates clown and comedy. And a lot of other things, like he, he plays the, is it the banjo?

Briand: 5:15

He pays banjo. He's a magician. He's a playwright. He's an author. Oh my God. Oh my gosh. He's incredible. It's funny you mention him. I invite him to every show that I, perform, I have a little plunger with his face on it and it says, reserved for Steve Martin. And if you go on Instagram or Facebook and type in hashtag Tell Steve. Yeah. You'll see a whole plethora of. Of invitations to Steve Martin to come to my show. It's, people who are sad that he didn't make it holding his plunger. Oh my gosh. And I will do it until he comes. Oh,

Lauren: 5:50

and I wanna help with this mission I would love to hear about your journey, how you got involved in the creative world and doing the shows that you're doing.'cause I think it's so much fun. Everything that you incorporate and Sure. Everything you bring to your audiences.

Briand: 6:03

So I am a magician or a mentalist depending on what gig you see me at. My journey. I started when I was about 13. I was a really shy kid. I grew up overseas in countries where they didn't speak English. And when I came back to America, I learned a trick once, and all of a sudden all the kids in class were talking to me. And I was like, that's it. I ran home. I was like, mom, I gotta learn another trick. I, got my first gig like six months, or it was less than that. And then I've been doing shows ever since. I paid my way through college doing mostly magic shows or mostly closeup magic. And I went to college to study a few things, but I ended up at theater. I thought theater would help me'cause I, knew that my biggest weakness was being on stage closeup magic. I was always pretty good at being on stage was really hard for me. So I took it because I knew it would be hard and I knew I needed it. And and then that was it. I figured I'd do it until I failed and until the pandemic. It was a really good run and I'm, back at it now.

Lauren: 7:01

Oh, wow. Thank you for sharing that part of your journey. And I can relate, in my case, I was a shy kid as well, and that's how I got into acting in theater. So you, so the shows that you're doing now

Briand: 7:11

so I have two main markets. I do educational school shows, I do shows at elementaries that are based on math, science, or reading. I have five different programs and before the pandemic I was going to a little over a hundred schools a year. Wow. Doing shows like that. And then the other half of my business is, Either corporate magic or mentalism is fake mind reading, and I have a show called The Good Liar in DC where I pretend to read the audience's mind. And then throughout the show, I'm exposing a bunch of lies that I've told throughout the show. It's a really fun the, premise of the show came from, is it possible to tell people you're gonna lie to them and still get them to believe you? And so that's what I do at the opening. I tell'em I'm gonna lie to them. I try to get them to believe me throughout the show, and at the end I try to pull the rug out. So it's a neat premise.

Lauren: 7:57

It's I've, never heard of this premise before. It's so creative and different. I love it.

Briand: 8:04

It's not good for corporate, but it's good for, the nice thing about four walling your own show. You get to do whatever you want. It's

Lauren: 8:10

fun. It sounds like fun Would love to see a show with Steve Martin or on another night. Actually, when you were telling a bit about the, your journey from when you were a child, it reminded me of, Steve's journey, Steve Martin's journey. For your inspirations like when you were a kid and getting into this, did you have. Favorite magicians or who were your inspirations?

Briand: 8:33

I had inspirations, I also had teachers. So one of the first magic teachers I had was a guy named Peter that no one's ever heard of, but he used Peter Glin'cause he was a former card cheater. He was a rounder in New York and used to steal people's money and and worked with some great magicians. And I guess at some point he decided he didn't wanna do that, so he started teaching magic. Lessons just with cards. So I would drive my, mother would drive me an hour and a half to Denny Lee Magic Studio in Baltimore. And I would sit with him for hours and he would sit there with a pen and I would do a move and he'd go, whack, I saw your pinky move. Do it. It was like a piano teacher whack. Do it again. I saw that it was riveting now, but for him, it's a matter of life and death, right? You do a move badly, you get caught, you get thrown in jail or beaten up or worse. So second, he was

Lauren: 9:19

really Doing things. He was really taking people's

Briand: 9:23

Oh yeah he was, from what I'm told, he didn't go much into that'cause I was a kid. Oh yeah. Yeah. But, from what? Yeah. He worked with a very famous magician Frank Thompson. And he apparently was a technician. So he was the guy who didn't do a ton of talking, but he did all the moves and made sure his partner won and, that kind of stuff. So I just

Lauren: 9:42

wanna make, this is so interesting. So your mom would drive you an hour and a half to work with.

Briand: 9:49

With, a horrible human. Yeah. No no, he's not a horrible human. He was just a reformed human. Okay. Okay. My mother was very I, had the best parents. I cannot, sounds, say anything, but like most magicians have this wonderful story about, nobody believed, no. My parents, they supported me, they believed in me, all that stuff. But my, mom never let me in the room alone. With any of these guys. Like she always was. And now as a parent I, certainly respect that she, was, she went in with both eyes open. She was careful to make sure that she didn't let me go into a place where I could get hurt or I would be influenced by she certainly didn't want him teaching me how to con people outta their money. But she also wanted me to follow what I, I was the fourth boy, my oldest brother tells me, I. Pretty much every time he can, that my parents never would've let him be a magician. It wouldn't have happened, but by the fourth board, you would warned him down and they

Lauren: 10:47

wouldn't do anything. Wow. No, it that's amazing that you and incredible that you had such supportive parents I

Briand: 10:53

often think of how much more successful I'd be if they didn't believe in me, oh. Given me a little less love. But but I, that was, yeah, it was a wonderful, and actually the very first magician I ever met, and you're not a magician, but this is. So incredibly rare. I didn't know it at the time. The first guy that I really met was a named Al Ette. He was a magician slash balloon twister and. I, got, I'd gotten my first gig and I was watching his show at the farm to learn okay, I'm gonna be doing walk around, I need, and I saw his show and he was really good and people loved him. And I watched his show four times in a row with my mom sitting next to me on the hail bales of hay. And after the fourth time he comes up, he goes, okay, what's the deal? You must have my act memorized. What, what's going on? And so my mom's oh, Brian's gonna be a magician. And he, you're just so good. He, went up on stage, he brought his act out that he had just performed that he's getting paid presumably good money to do. And he taught me his act. He gave me some props. He goes, this is a special plastic bag. Here you have that. I got plenty at home. It was just literally give, And I'll never forget that. But that was my introduction. My real introduction into magic. Was, with such kindness now, Very few magicians are that way, but I just got lucky. That's just how I, entered this world. That's

Lauren: 12:14

amazing. And I have I'm so happy to hear this. It's, so nice to hear these, positive experiences and everything just unfolding. Is there something that you do internally, like in your mind?'cause I believe that everything starts off with a thought and a feeling and then we can allow or attract that. Or see it manifest, are you able to pinpoint, because I love learning and, hearing about this something that you're doing. With your emotions or your energy or your mind that then allows these things to, to unfold and allows you to meet the right people at the right time. And, oh

Briand: 12:54

I've met so many of the wrong people. I don't know that I'm the best, but here's, one thing that I learned. I, happen to be putting on a show. It was a benefit show and this amazing mentalist was backstage and he was giving himself positive affirmations. He didn't know. I could hear, I was walking down the hall and I hear him going, man, it's such a great day. I'm so lucky to do this. I'm so happy to be here today and to get to share this with everybody. And I looked in the room and he was just talking to himself in the mirror and I was like John you're up. And he walked out on stage and he was just beaning and people could if you just look at that guy and you're like, that guy's happy, that guy. I like that guy. You're attracted to that guy. So I don't think that's exactly what you're asking, but that is something that I, there are times at shows, especially when, especially school shows where I have to get up at five, four or five in the morning, drive for a couple hours, set up the show and I'm exhaust. I just want, I just wanna be in bed and the show's about start and I go, you know what? I gotta get myself pumped. And I, talk to myself, not out loud, but in my head I, I talk to myself about how lucky I am to be doing what I'm doing. This is the this is what I've worked my whole life for. I can't wait to go share these tricks with these students or whatever. It's, so that is one of the things that I do. On a wider scale, having nothing to do with performance. Something that I learned a long time ago. I read it in a book on happiness. I'm a, I love your, the topic of your podcast. I'm, thank you. I've always, it's something, happiness is not something that came to me naturally. I, think I had a lot of, I as, I was younger and certainly in high school, middle school, I think I tended towards negative. And so I've spent a long time trying to read books and, other things and meet people who helped me learn. How to live a happier life. And one of the things that I do, I was,'cause I talked to my wife about this before coming on your podcast, and my wife reminded me of this trick that I learned a long time ago, and now I do it all the time, which is, happiness is a three phase process, right? There's the, okay, the example I heard was, let's say that your kid is having a cake, so eating the cake, That's the event, right? That's gonna be bring happiness. But there's getting excited about eating the cake and there's talking about eating the cake afterwards. And that's all part of happiness. And so I, try and I try with my kids to get them to think about things, talk about things that they enjoyed. Talk about things that they're going to enjoy, and then hopefully they can enjoy the moment too.

Lauren: 15:24

Hey, Brian. I love everything about what you just shared and, what you practice with your children and, your wife, your family I find ways to be, feel good in the moment or, appreciate where I am. But I, tell myself that I'm excited also about what's. Unfolding and what's to come. So Brian, I wanted to ask you with, the laughter laughter exercises there's one that is called the the magic laughter exercise, and I'm curious what you think of this one. If we can do it. I'm let's do it. Feeling nervous to do, because you're a professional. In the magic field, and this is okay, but I, yeah, let's do it. Let's, try it. Okay, cool. Okay, so I'm gonna, and there are people tuning in audio only. So I'll try to explain this best that I can so that it makes sense. Audio, but basically I'm gonna take two of my, you might know this trick. It's, I think it's a, it's an old school one, or okay. Traditional one. Okay. So I remember my father doing this. So you take your index both of your index fingers. Yeah. And they're separated right now. And then you bring them together, slowly bring them together and say a and then, oh yeah. Is that what you were doing? We bring them to, yeah. So we bring them together in a part. Okay. Together A and then together get a apart, together apart. And then at one point we tap them together, and then our index finger and middle finger of one hand. Oh. How do you describe this audio? Only together in a P sign, you put

Briand: 16:48

down one F, first finger, and you put up one middle

Lauren: 16:51

finger. Yes. Where you're making a peace sign with one hand, and it looks like your two index fingers now are attached together and then you laugh. Okay. Okay. So that was the the magic laughter, yoga exercise. I'm looking for another fun laughter to exercise where we can do something that's easy to do with as an action and then we laugh. How about do you do stuff with with cards or, do you do stuff with? I do

Briand: 17:19

I'm sure I have cards right over here.

Lauren: 17:20

Combining magic and laughter. Lemme grab a deck. I'll grab a Okay.

Briand: 17:24

Real quick. They're right here. So we have a deck. Let me get a non-GI deck. Okay, there we go. Okay, so we have a deck

Lauren: 17:32

of cards, okay? Yes. And, we'll explain this. We're and guys, this is our listeners, our viewers. This is not planned. No. We're we're using some improvisational skills. Okay. Okay.

Briand: 17:45

I tell you what, I'm gonna go through the deck like this. Make, shuffle'em up. Let me find, I wanna get a table high enough so that the camera can Yeah.

Lauren: 17:52

Just something simple and, the po the purpose is so we can laugh.

Briand: 17:55

So I'm gonna go, I'm gonna go like this. You just say stop whenever you want. Okay. Stop right there. Yeah. One more, or that's it. Oh. Oh. Maybe one more. Okay. Okay. Thank, I want you to say the name. I'm gonna look away and say the name of this card over and over in your mind. Three of hearts. Three of hearts. Three of hearts or whatever. It's, oh

Lauren: 18:12

my God. It's the three of hearts.

Briand: 18:16

I have extra. What? You have

Lauren: 18:21

extra

Briand: 18:21

What? You have extra. Extra cards. Oh.

Lauren: 18:27

And Brian for our audio listeners, Brian was pulling, that's right. Cards out of cards were coming out of Brian's mouth. I just wanted to make sure everybody

Briand: 18:38

knew what I was. Of course this is audio is not my normal

Lauren: 18:42

medium. Me neither. It's becoming my mind, but I'm still learning'cause I'm human. Brian, thank you so much for that impromptu exercise where we chose a card. You guessed it. Like you Okay. It was the three of hearts. I don't know how you did it. Yeah, I

Briand: 18:59

was, I was very lucky.

Lauren: 19:01

That's amazing. And then I was, and then I laughed as an, we laughed as an exercise. So thank you so much for for my pleasure making a laughter exercise. So Brian, I wanna thank you so much for, being a guest, sharing what you shared. And I wanted to I have one of my last questions that I like to ask is if there was a question that I did not ask, but would've been a great question, what would it be and what would your answer be? So basically what would you, is there anything like a final, final for this chat thoughts that you would like to share with our listeners? Any people who wanna feel good or better or, who are in the performance world or, anyone, anything you would like to share?

Briand: 19:48

I, guess what my, my thought, the thing that I see a lot of guys do that. That I don't think necessarily leads to happiness. They jump into this amazing art form whether, it's what you do or what I do, it's an art form, and they immediately go to what makes the most money or any money right off the bat. They're like, ah, I don't doing kid shows, but man, it's regular money. If you don't like doing kid shows, don't do kid shows. If you don't like doing corporate events, don't do corporate events. I think you just have to think a little outside of the box and find a way. This live show I, still do corporate events, but that's my favorite thing to do. It's to, to write shows, sell tickets, have people come. Hopefully they'll like it. And then every four or five years I'll write another one. So I would say don't just settle with what. Other guys, no two magicians have made their money the same way. Everyone's created their own path. Be figure out what you like and then focus on that, rather than just listening to the marketing gurus who tell you what you should do. Brian?

Lauren: 20:50

Yes, that is gold. It is. So it So key and so important. I'm so happy I asked you that question. Go ahead. What I'm saying is I'm so glad you shared that important piece of advice with us because it's key to everything. It's all about following what feels right and feels fun for you. And only you know what that is, and it's different for everyone, like you said. Thank you so much for, having shared that. Oh, my pleasure. Because it's so true and, applies to everyone for everything. You've gotta do what feels right for you. And do you have a trick on how to tune in to to check in with yourself, to feel what feels right for you? Like how do you know? Oh boy.

Briand: 21:35

I, to me it's just what do I get excited about? I just, I know it when I feel

Lauren: 21:42

it. Yes. Okay. That's it. You feel it. It's a feeling and Thank you for, sharing that with us. And I, do the same thing. I, check in or I pay attention to how I feel and it's a feeling that only you can be aware of and know. And trust that, trust the, feeling and, follow what feels right and fun. So these are such important things that you shared with us, Brian. I'm very thankful. It's my pleasure. Thank you for having me on the podcast. I will see your show one day and. Steve Martin will too. Excellent. And I hope so. Yes. I'm really I'm really excited for everything that you're doing and so happy we reconnected. Thank you again, Brian, for having My pleasure. Been a guest and and I hope to laugh with you and see you soon.

Briand: 22:29

That sounds great. Thank you

Lauren: 22:30

so much. Okay. Thank you much. Okay, bye.

22:33

Thank you for having tuned into this Law of Happy episode. If you smiled, laughed, or felt inspired, please subscribe, rate, review, and share the Law of Happy podcast with someone you'd love to have fun with. And if you'd like to laugh with me as a guest on the show or in a customized program, you can email me at lauren@lawofhappy.com. I look forward to laughing with you soon.