What Mentalist Oz Pearlman Can Teach Founders About Brand Storytelling

MENTALIST OZ PEARLMAN

Have you ever watched Oz Pearlman and thought, “How on earth did he do that?”

What I am fascinated by about Oz is that he’s not really trying to control people’s actions. He’s shaping what they remember about the moment, and that’s where the real magic happens.

Before becoming one of the world’s top mentalists, Oz worked on Wall Street in a corporate engineering role at Merrill Lynch. The turning point was a corporate performance that left senior leaders stunned. So he did something most people never do: he stepped out of a prestigious, stable job and into the uncertainty of performing full-time.

Because he took that leap, he now teaches millions of us something vital:

It’s not the action people take that truly matters. It’s the story they walk away with.

THE BRAIN X MEMORY

A 2023 study by Science Direct on authentic brand storytelling found that when stories align with the product and feel authentic, consumer evaluations significantly improve.

2025 research by Marketing Journal reveals that storytelling on social media increases brand trust, value perception and purchase intent.

Oz’s entire craft mirrors this thinking. He often says the audience is the real star of the show. He’s constantly anticipating what people might be thinking, second-guessing their assumptions and shaping the experience they’ll remember later.

CEOs and founders need to think the same way.

Most companies spend their energy pushing out messages:

Here’s our product.

Here are our features.

Here’s why we’re great.

But behaviour - the click, the sign-up, the sale - is almost always a by-product of the memory someone has of the experience.

The real questions are:

• Did something surprise them?

• Did a line land so well that it was repeated later?

• Are they still singing your jingle whilst making a cup of coffee?

• Did they walk away feeling inspired? Did you make them smile?

Great brands create memories worth keeping. They design the moment someone recalls tomorrow, and retells it to someone else the next day.

Brand storytelling is one of the most powerful tools founders can use to shape perception, build trust, and create emotional connection. Rather than relying on features or rational arguments alone, effective brand storytelling taps into psychology, memory, and human behaviour to make ideas stick.

So, if you are a founder, CEO, investor or on a board and you have ambitions to see your business grow, ask yourself:

Is your storytelling centred on your customer and the life they’re living? Or is it centred on what you provide and why you think it’s great?

OZ PEARLMAN TED TALK

Watch Oz commanding the TED stage

Read Oz's book 'Read Your Mind'

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