The takeaway? Think of what’s been really bothering you today....

The takeaway? Think of what’s been really bothering you today. It may not be intrinsically bad–but your response to it is making it so. Who is it good for? If you had to describe it as something good, how would you do that? A challenge for you to learn? Perhaps a lesson in letting go?

I had something really bad happen a week or so back. A close family member died, and I couldn’t even be there. Sad. Bad. And yet… it was a “wake up call” for me. I was immediately prompted to re-examine my own life and my own decisions. For the most part, I found myself on a path I’m happy with–but I know I’ve been resting a bit too much, not pushing hard enough to make sure the things happen, that I take advantage of opportunities open to me, or that I push my loved ones enough to live their dreams. So–there were some very good things that came from this one very bad thing. Only some deep thought, some facing of painful emotions brought up by the “bad” thing, could lead  me to where I am now.

Remember: As wizards, we are those who bring about and embrace change. Part of that process involved examining and re-examining our own thinking, and questioning that thinking. Upon deeper thought, the things we see as “bad” or “good” might be neither… or both.

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Nor can any of us–it is fruitless to try. The great thing...

Nor can any of us–it is fruitless to try. 

The great thing is that if you adopt the right mindset, and teach yourself to learn from every experience, there is no need to even TRY and return to previous experiences. Learn the lessons and move on to something new–that’s the wizard’s way.

Too many of us, instead of moving on, attempt to live the same day over and over again. We go familiar places, associate with familiar people, and do familiar, safe things. That’s the way to stagnation. One way to avoid it is to take Eleanor Roosevelt’s advice and “Do one thing that frightens you every day.”

When you do that, you’ll find your life quickly taking on more color, more depth, becoming more of an adventure. You will find yourself becoming more powerful and more interesting to others. Life is for the living!

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When we present, when we pitch, when we create a new...

When we present, when we pitch, when we create a new business–the biggest, baddest mistake most of us make most often, is failing to consider the audience. Who is this for? Who are we helping by doing this? Who are we trying to change, to convince?

And why is this so important? Simply because you will not be convinced, or changed, or sold on something, in the same way that I will. The factory worker has a different set of norms by which she lives than the factory manager does. The young mother has a whole different set of priorities than the high school football coach. And the engineer, the designer, the marketing expert in that new company you’re trying to get off the ground, has a different set of concerns, lives in a different milieu, and will be convinced by a whole different sort of presentation than the Angel Investor of Venture Capitalist will be.

So please take the time to research your audience. Instead of assuming you know all about them, take the time to look them up, read their biographies, and talk to their colleagues. Only when you really know your audience will you know how best to make an effective presentation for them.

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Are you waiting for your destiny to find you? Perhaps you will...

Are you waiting for your destiny to find you? Perhaps you will do better if you think of destiny as something you create–and then get busy creating the one you want.

Which isn’t to say destiny doesn’t deal each of us a different hand… but if you’re a great player at the game of life, even what seems like a terrible hand can lead to a big win.

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There’s a phrase, “You can’t push the river.” It means that...

There’s a phrase, “You can’t push the river.” It means that sometimes, there are things you encounter which won’t yield to your direct manipulations. There are times we desperately want something to take place on a particular timeline, but, for whatever reason, it simply can’t happen. As a matter of fact, there are times we can actually damage our cause by pushing too hard.

I’ve seen just that happen when a client wanted an engagement so badly that he badgered the client who was thinking of hiring him. The client, who had been interested, “pushed back” against the badgering, and decided against my client. Left alone, or pushed more gently, there was a good chance we would have won the engagement.

However, the fact that we can’t push the river, doesn’t mean we can’t have any effect at all on it. Rivers can be damned and diverted. Water can be piped from the river, or into the river. Rivers can be polluted or cleaned. Just because we can’t push that river, that doesn’t mean we might not find another way to get the river to help us get where we ultimately wish to go.

There was another time, a few years back, when another client—let’s call him James– wanted to perform at The Magic Castle. We took the direct approach: I contacted theperson currently booking performers there. He was a new booker who didn’t know me, though over the years I had booked several other performers there, and they had all done very well. I was baffled, and followed up when the booker didn’t get back to me. I even called once, but he wouldn’t take my call, and he never responded. We realizedthe direct response wasn’t going to work. We could have pressed the issue, as both he and I knew people on the board of the Magic Castle. We decided not to try to push that river, though. Here’s what we did, instead.

Both the client and myself had many, many friends who were members and regular attendees at the Magic Castle. We passed the word to all of them that my client really wanted to work there, but was feeling blocked by the current booker. We had no idea why, and wondered if our friends, who did know him, could help us find out. Then we made a point of following up with all those friends about once a week to see if “they had been able to find out anything.” The result? Several times a week, the new booker would be approached by someone he knew who would ask him, “So, why haven’t you booked James here yet? He’s fantastic!”

It took a month or so, but eventually the guy broke down, and my client has been playing the Castle regularly for many years. But if we had tried to push by the most direct route, I’m betting it would have taken years instead of months to get him booked.

What’s the wizard lesson here? I think it’s that we have to be alert and aware of thesituations we face. Some can be influenced directly and quickly—others are the“rivers,” where we must be patient, be creative, and make best use of the more oblique ways we can exert influence in order to get our desired outcome.

By the way, have you visited our site at wizardventure.com recently? I’ve been managing daily updates on the journal (blog), and thought you might enjoy them.

Until next time, then.
Sincerely,

Tobias Beckwith
tobias@yourmagic.com

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I am off to Las Vegas to teach magicians the art of business,...

I am off to Las Vegas to teach magicians the art of business, and to speak on the business of art. And it both cases, Leonardo’s dictum, “Everything connects to everything else,” applies.

I talk a lot about how wizards examine things from many different angles, different points of view… and it’s important to remember that seeing a person, object or single situation can often leave us unable to see how that one thing fits into and affects the larger systems of which it is a part.

A take away from this? Spend a few minutes each day reflecting on how you and your actions affect the larger communities that you are a part of. We all serve larger causes–but not always consciously.

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Knowing where you want to go, what you want to achieve, who you...

Knowing where you want to go, what you want to achieve, who you want to be–that can make all the difference. What is YOUR purpose?

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life: Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born 147 years ago today,...

life:

Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi was born 147 years ago today, October 2, 1869. Pictured here in an iconic image by LIFE photographer Margaret Bourke-White sitting at his spinning wheel in 1946. (Margaret Bourke-White—The LIFE Picture Collection/Getty Images) #LIFElegends #1960s #Gandhi

Portrait of a true wizard. Not always nice, but effective and true to his own principles. This little guy changed life in his native India forever, and set the tone for so many of our more recent movements toward real social justice, and a global awareness and acknowledgement that human dignity ought to be a universal right. Not only did he set the example, but he left a virtual manual for how to do it, followed by such other great leaders as Martin Luther King, Jr. and Nelson Mandela.

His secret: “I have only been working on myself, trying to become a better me.” So… have you been working on yourself? Maybe it’s time to start. If you want the world to become the world you want it to be, you must become the person you want to be.

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illusion911: love forgetting time by @jamesreads Motion by...

illusion911:

love forgetting time by @jamesreads
Motion by TheGlitch @illusion911

We tend to think of love as an emotion. Perhaps it’s more important to think of it as an action. Who do you love? What do you love? Do you have the strength, the will, to love? I hope you will!

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Creating art from technology that isn’t yet quite ready can be a...

Creating art from technology that isn’t yet quite ready can be a huge challenge, but Marco Tempest loves a challenge. Here’s the latest creation. Once again, Marco’s work pushes the envelope of what’s currently possible.

If you’re a startup developing a new technology and attempting to push the boundaries of what’s possible for it, perhaps you should consider inviting Marco to help you promote it–you might just find his work can help you work your way through. Sometimes the artist’s perspective can provide just the change that’s needed.

In the meantime, enjoy the video!

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Dance your Way to BrillianceWe do ourselves a disservice when we...

Dance your Way to Brilliance

We do ourselves a disservice when we believe that we think only with our brains. Any actor, acrobat or dancer knows that thought, emotion–all the things we think of as being ‘of the mind,’ are more clearly and intensely experienced as bodily phenomena. And yet, when we engage in heavy mental activity–writing, programming, etc., we tend to do it seated in chairs and at desks. 

There is a reason Steve Jobs and other well-known effective leaders like to take their most important meetings while going out for a walk. Dancers, yogi’s and many others know through experience that the healthy, active body is a source of great creativity and vitality.

So, the next time you run up against a seemingly insurmountable challenge and find you just can’t seem to think your way through it–it might be time to get up and dance, to go for a run or a bike ride. You might just surprise yourself about how effective that can be!

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A classic quote, and one that has even more meaning in our time...

A classic quote, and one that has even more meaning in our time of rapid change. Many of the problems we face were created by ourselves and our ancestors in a very different time. 

Not long ago I watched one of the earlier episodes of “Mad Men,” in which Don Draper and his family have a lovely picnic out in the country, enjoying all the latest that their world had to offer: Paper plates, styrofoam cups, plastic “disposable” eating utensils…everything disposable. At the end of the picnic, the family gets up, goes to the car and drives away. After all… it was all supposed to be “disposable,” right? I was a boy at the time depicted… I remember those attitudes…and many of us still live that way. We “externalize” the cost of much or our economy, with no one paying the real costs to the land of our factory farms, no one paying for the disposal of the carbon we pump into the atmosphere or the ever dwindling population of fish in our oceans. Until recently, we simply assumed the planet had the ability to absorb the damage and repair itself faster than we could ever damage it. We struggled hard to get ourselves to a state of such abundance that we could afford our disposable society–and we were going to enjoy it!

Well… THAT thinking won’t save us now. With sea levels rising, ever more extreme storms all over the world, food supplies endangered by dwindling honey bee populations, more and more species becoming extinct as a direct result of human expansion into their habitats… humanity finds itself in danger of “maxing out” the planet’s resources. Huge corporations who reaped the rewards of that kind of industrial progress have a lot of momentum, and they continue in what many of us now see as their evil ways. So, as Einstein says, the thinking that got us into this, won’t get us out!

Fortunately, we do have many new technologies that can help. The question is, do we have the mental flexibility to change ourselves, to change our thinking, in time to save ourselves? I suppose only time will tell, but this is one of the reasons I wrote the first Wizard’s Way book. Wizards are change agents, catalysts to help themselves and other get comfortable with change. It’s a choice we must all make. Will you choose to be part of the problem and continue along just as you have always done, or will you choose to become a part of the solution… to take action, to take responsibility, to change the world?

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Is it possible that losing your curiosity is a leading cause of...

Is it possible that losing your curiosity is a leading cause of aging?

The truly curious do not need a reason to be curious They are not seeking riches, or change, or anything else, except to know the truth. Children are endlessly curious, and many of us lose our ability to stay curious throughout our lives. 

I wonder, is it possible that our education system, with its emphasis on finding the “right” answer, actually kills curiosity, and along with it, true creativity? For me, curiosity is one of the chief joys of life. I suppose that’s why I embrace the Wizard’s Motto: “Question Everything” with such a passion!

As they say in my favorite pizza joint: Try it. You’ll LIKE it!

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We are all more powerful than we imagine. Accept the power you...

We are all more powerful than we imagine. Accept the power you have and use it wisely–the world needs you!

All too often, we give away our power. One of the most common ways of doing this is by blaming others for conditions we actually have the ability to change ourselves. Next time you find yourself blaming someone else for something, stop. Ask yourself how you are being and what you are doing that you could change, and thus affect the situation you were about to blame someone else for. Then make the necessary changes. You have the power!

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