This charger will levitate your smartphone.
For your #sillysunday.
Maglev for the rest of us. Just waiting for one of my magician friends to try using this to levitate themselves on stage–or, more likely, a sexy assistant.
Still, I have to give kudos for mixing something useful with something that’s just awesome fun. I would totally buy one!
Relax your mind
I’ve not been good about keeping up posts this weekend. Here’s a reward for those who bother to follow. A favorite magicians’ trick… largely because we don’t have to DO anything to make it work, except show it to you. Your eyes and mind do all the work. But trust me… it’s worth the effort.
Here’s how it works. Let yourself stare at the center dot steadily for 30 seconds or so. Then shift your gaze to something in the room where you’re sitting to watch this. Someone’s face, a picture on the all, a plant…anything will work. I won’t tell you what happens… you have to experience this!
Have a great weekend!
The world changes fast, and your solutions that seemed perfect last year – or even last month – are no longer likely to be so great.
Jeff McBride, Larry Hass and I were talking together about this very idea while sharing some downtime in Phoenix last weekend, in between our offerings at the National Speakers Convention.
If you’re not constantly improving your product – in this case our product being the various offerings at the McBride Magic & Mystery School, and the new offerings at The Wizard Venture – you’re falling behind. Only your feedback loops will tell you when that’s happening. That’s why we’re always looking for new ways to serve, new ways to improve what we’re offering.
If you’re in business, no matter what, I hope you’re doing the same. That’s how the world moves forward – and that’s what real wizards are all about!
Magicians, like most performers, want to please their audiences. And yet, like many performers, they fail to consider all the visual aspects of their very visual art.
On the simplest level, this means making sure an audience can see you and what you’re doing. Is your stage situated in such a way that everyone in the audience can see you clearly? Too often, those beyond the first row have a partially block view. Can you remedy that? Maybe stand on a chair? Maybe get people in front to sit while those in back stand? If they can’t see what you’re doing, why bother to watch? If you’re hiring a magician for your event, you have the same concerns. Are you providing a stage and viewing situation which promotes good, clear vision of the performer for all audience members? Are you lighting the performance area in a way that makes the performance more visible, and helps call attention to the performer?
On a deeper level, consider that every moment of your performance is painting a picture, and a slightly different one for each person viewing the performance. What picture are you presenting? If you’re not recording your rehearsals on video, and recording them from different angles, you probably have no idea of what visual images you’re actually presenting. A video camera, or a good director, can be your best friend!
Think about this for a moment. No matter what kind of performer you might be–magician, juggler, acrobat, speaker, comedian, whatever–a large part of your performance is visual, and yet you never really check out what that visual is. It’s as though you’re painting a picture, but you never look at the canvas!
So, please… consider the visual aspects of your performance, and consider them from the perspective of each and every audience member. Depending on the angle they are seeing you from and how close or far away from you they are, each one is having a different experience. It’s your job to make sure that all of them are having the best experience possible, and you can only do that if you check that experience from as many of those different angles as possible!
What are the thoughts in your mind when you fall asleep? When you wake up? What thoughts are you filling your head with? How’s that working for you?
I’ve been watching TV series on Netflix at night. Bad boy. Yes, it’s a nice way to wind up a hard day’s work… but the result is that my head is full of useless drivel when I sleep…and it’s still there when I wake up.
Last week was different. I was working on a new talk, this one all about what makes a presentation (or talk, or magic trick, or show) great, and techniques you can use to make your own presentations great. It was to be presented at the National Speakers Convention in Phoenix. So, for four or five days in a row, no TV… instead, I worked on the talk in the evening. Outlining, finding graphics for the slides, trying out different ways of supporting bits with little bits of magic…
Well, the talk went very well… but that’s not really the point. The real point is that, for those four nights, my mind continued to work and create in relation to the talk I was working on. I awoke each morning with new ideas, clearer understandings of what I had been working on.
I’m home now, and last night went back to watching TV shows. Not such a productive awakening this morning. I think I’ll be more careful with what I’m putting into my mind from now on. Especially just before sleep!
Here’s a secret, well, to success in any business, actually. I’ve been working with magicians and speakers so long, I tend to put things in that framework… but this principle applies to almost any endeavor.
It’s easy for the small business person to get lost in what they do. As a magician, it is easy to get lost in the perspective of doing magic. If you’re a craftsman–say someone who installs kitchen cabinets–it’s easy to get lost in the minutiae of installing those cabinets. When markets are good and there’s more than enough work to go around, this is fine.
However, the truly successful leaders in any field, whether it be magic, speaking, technology, craftsmanship… whatever, must move beyond their own narrow view, and look to providing whatever will serve their customers best. Clients have both material and emotional needs. When they make a major purchase, then need to feel they have made the best choice, and as a buisness person, you need to provide that experience as a part of your product. They have to feel their friends will look up to them for their good decision. You have to provide that. They would love to feel you actually care about them, and not just that new countertop you installed for them. Be prepared to give that kind of service, and you will succeed in whatever business you undertake.
Got, buy a product made by Apple, or from the Levenger catalog, and you’ll see how they get this right. You’ll be treated as a valued client, not just a faceless customer. You’ll feel they care about you and how you’re going to feel about the product they’ve sent you. About the experience you will have with that product… you’ll feel well taken care of.
Then consider… does your business give your customers that kind of experience? Could you? Sure, it might cost you a little more… but true clients are willing to pay a lot more for that kind of experience. Think about it!
Backstage after Jeff McBride’s performance at the NSA Influence conference in Phoenix. Wiht Scott Halford, Steven Shapiro, Kathy Buckley, Jeff McBride and Jason Hewlett – quite a magical evening!
This conference has been a wild ride for us… Jeff’s show was great (yes..with the usual stuanding ovation!), as was the group who attended our Magic for Speakers and Presenters session the next day. We’re looking forward to seeing how many of the new friends we made will show up at the 3-day Speakers and Presenters session with present in November – or contact us about our various other workshops offered by both the McBride Magic & Mystery School and the Wizard Venture.
We’re busy gathering lots of new information and sharing it with all our various followers. More in the coming days!
Hoping you’re feeling fully motivated on this “Motivational Monday!”
I’ll be going to the NSA “Influence” conference in Phoenix this weekend with my friends and partners Jeff McBride and Larry Hass. Jeff will perform to close out the first general session on Saturday evening, then the three of us will present an abbreviated (90 minute) version of our “Magic for Speakers & Presenters,” which we offer as a 3 day session at the McBride Magic & Mystery School in Las Vegas.
We’ve recently also joined forces here, as a part of The Wizard Venture, to make a similar event available to corporations and the startup community here in Silicon Valley. Tricks will be taught and learned–but more important will be the learning of the underlying skills and secrets we use in the world of magic, acting and performance art to enhance our performances–all aso useful to speakers of all kinds.
If you’ll be at the conference, I hope you’ll introduce yourself. We’re looking to having a great time, and inspiring a lot of people!
This is a popular Einstein quote, but I wonder how many who use it actually take the time to think about what he is saying here.
The way I see it, Einstein is telling us that we must make ourselves learn to see situations from different points of view, different “ways of thinking,” in order to gain real control over them. Different points of view can be the points of view of those we thought we disagreed with. They can be the view from a different position in space–or in time. There are many different points of view we can adopt… and each one is likely to reveal a different “truth” about the situation or thing being observed.
The disadvantage of taking this “many points of view” approach is that sometimes it takes a bit longer to come to a decision. The advantages are that you learn to see things from others’ view points when you are involved in interactions with them. In addition, learning to see things from many different perspectives often reveals things you cannot learn from a single perspective–things like leverage points you can use to change those things almost as if by magic!
And that’s the Wizard’s Way!
life:
Happy Birthday to the legendary John Glenn who turns 95 today. No person alive has been more closely associated, for so long, with America’s triumphs in the early days of the Space Race than John Glenn, and few Americans in history have served their country in as many high-profile and varied roles: First American to orbit the earth; decorated Marine Corps veteran (in both WWII and Korea); novice, eager politician; seasoned, savvy, multi-term United States senator; space shuttle crew member—across seven decades, Glenn has lived much of his personal and professional life in the public eye. See and read more on LIFE.com. (Ralph Morse—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #LIFElegends #NASA #JohnGlenn
One of my childhood (young adulthood?) heroes… What a life, huh?
Just one of the reasons I’ve had such a longstanding love affair with magic… it’s not just about tricks!
Are you putting on an event sometime soon, perhaps for your business? Magic & magicians might be able to provide you with some special leverage to assure the success of that event. If not an actual magician, you can learn a lot about things like guiding your audience’s attention, taking responsibility to make sure the outcome is what you want, examining your event from different points of view, rehearsal, and much more, from learning to think like a magician!
I had a chance to spend some time at Apple’s headquarters in Cupertino this past week and was reminded of some of the things I admired about Steve Jobs. Many of the images from his “here’s to the crazy ones” campaign still decorate the walls there–and they still inspire.
I’ve no idea of what it must have been like to work with him, and there are many conflicting reports. He seems to have been someone people loved to love, or loved to hate. How you might feel about how he accomplished what he did doesn’t really matter to me. The fact that he did accomplish those things, and did so by inspiring both his employees and his customers to see things differently… that’s what, at least for me, makes Jobs a True Wizard. The products are nice, the fact that he brought the company back from the brink is certainly a remarkable achievement… but the act of creating the kind of inspiration he did through the “Here’s to the crazy ones” campaign… to me, that was greatness.
Have you read Feynman’s books Surely You’re Joking, Mr. Feynman! and What Do You Care What Other People Think? If not, and if you love renegade thinkers, you’re in for a treat.
As a magician and teacher of magicians, I’m particularly fond of the quote above. Magicians have a fondness for fooling–both themselves and others. While not one likes to be made a chump through being fooled, there is a moment when we see something we know cannot be true… but appears to be. That moment is pure magic. I can’t tell you how many hours I’ve spent working on some small sleight-of-hand move, or staring at an optical illusion, just for the delight of seeing something–in a way that makes me believe in it–that I simply know is not true. Sometimes it really IS fun to be fooled!
At the same time, I think it’s important to know when we are fooling ourselves, or allowing ourselves to be fooled. All too often, we simply “go along” with a part of our lives we secretly know to be “not real,” just because everyone else goes along with it, and because it’s really too much trouble to think it through for ourselves. Sometimes, we gain an advantage by that “going along.” For example, when we agree that paper money has real value, and thus facilitate our participation in an economy. Other times, not so much.
There’s a story of how elephants are trained in India. When you travel there, you might see an elephant whose leg is tethered by a small rope to a small peg pounded into the ground. “But the elephant certainly has the strength to break free, either by breaking the rope, or pulling the peg from the ground, “ you think. And that it true. But it was not always true. When that elephant was very young, it didn’t have the strength it has now. I learned then that the rope and peg could hold it… could take away it’s freedom. Now, whenever the trainer ties the rope to the elephant’s leg, it is bound, and cannot move. What binds it? Truly, only the illusion, and the fact that it cannot question that illusion.
Don’t be like that elephant! THAT is definitely NOT The Wizard’s Way.
I love photos like this, that kind of “hurt my brain.” Trying to stretch your mind around just what we’re actually looking at here forces you to consider things–or at least THIS thing–from different angles. The object seems impossible, and yet it exists. The impossibility comes because your brain is taking the sensory input it is getting, and making assumptions, some of which are just wrong.
How often do you suppose we do exactly the same thing in our everyday lives? Perhaps when we make a judgment about someone else’s behavior? Or about a situation we find ourselves in that we don’t like? When was the last time you spent time trying to imagine yourself “inside the skin” of someone with whom you disagree on something, and tried to understand how they are experiencing their version of reality that is leading them to disagree with you?
I find, with myself, it’s often really enlightening–and empowering–to take the time to try and see a situation from more than just my own perspective. Sometimes when you consider a 2nd, or 3rd, or 4th point of view, you’ll either change your own mind… or, more often, be able to adopt a new point of view and course of action that may help not only you, but those you thought you disagreed with, to find a new “higher ground,” from which you can cooperate more effectively.
I’m travelling to a conference for speakers later this month, talking about a project we offer both through the McBride Magic & Mystery School as part of our curriculum in Las Vegas, but also within the context of The Wizard Venture, here in Silicon Valley: Magic for Speakers & Presenters. Magic is important for speakers for many reasons, but one of the main ones is that it practically forces an audience ot get involved.
One of the great keys to a successful persuasive presentation, no matter what the medium, is the act of involving your audience.
Most public speaking coaches know the importance of wrapping one’s materials in interesting stories… but few understand that this is because stories go a long way towards actually involving and audience’s emotions with their material. Far more effective, even than telling a story, is getting the audience involved in actually creating a story through their participation. This is the key to all deep learning, and to personal transformation.
You’ll learn more if you attend our workshop in Las Vegas (http://ift.tt/29uN3rU), or using the contact button on this page to ask me about setting up a special session for your group here in the Bay Area.
I’m going to see my friend and partner Jeff McBride perform and lecture for a group down at Apple headquarters in Cupertino tonight, sponsored by S.A.M. local #94. I’m looking forward to visiting with lots of old friends… and maybe setting up another short set of performance workshops down that way soon.
Among other things, Jeff and I will be discussing rolling out this Wizard Venture business with friends from Silicon Valley. I’ll let you know what feedback we get from those friends who live their lives in the heart of the Valley over the coming days.
Have to make a pitch in order to raise funding, make a sale, or inspire your team? We can help… and have a special offer for you if you’re an incubator is Silicon Valley! Click through to learn more about this opportunity!
This follows Einstein’s own advice to always question everything. That is the key to continued growth, to keeping your mind alive and engaged. It is also the key to moving forward in business, with research… in fact, in almost every human endeavor. Even if you learn something new and revealing from a book, video, or another source–make it your own by proving or disproving it through your own critical thinking!
Continue to question everything–That’s The Wizard’s Way!
Amazing visual illusions from artist Dain Yoon (Video)
If you read this regularly, you know I’m fascinated by illusions and how they make us re-evaluate the way we create our experiences of reality. So… you’ll understand my delight in this post. I hope you’ll enjoy it as much as I have!
T.H. White’s Once & Future King is among the great novels of all time. Beyond being a fantastic story, it contains much of the wisdom, as spoken by Merlyn, that has come to be at the core of my books on The Wizard’s Way. Here, we have Merlyn telling young Arthur that one of the surest ways to overcome sadness–or anxiety or any other negative emotion, for that matter–is to learn something. I’ve found this to be extremely effective advice.
In another part of the book, Merlyn teaches Arthur, not by telling him things, or giving him information, but by giving him experiences, and making him think about them for himself. True learning only comes through experience.
