The Art of Manliness - #306： What a Magician Can Teach You About Being More Successful

00:00:00.000 brad mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast well almost

00:00:18.580 every boy goes through a magic phase at some point in his life i know when i was eight i

00:00:22.880 was convinced that i was going to be the next david copperfield besides walking away with

00:00:26.960 some cool tricks to do at parties or to impress your nieces and nephews with my guest today says

00:00:31.280 your childhood magic phase can impart some important lessons on being successful as an

00:00:35.600 adult his name is david kwang he's a magician new york times crossword creator and author of the book

00:00:40.880 spellbound today on the show david and i discuss how several key principles for magic can be applied

00:00:45.020 beyond the stage and make you more successful in business and life we'll learn what it means to load

00:00:49.480 up in magic and how richard branson used that principle to start virgin airlines why storytelling

00:00:53.380 is key for executing both a successful magic trick and a successful business we also discuss

00:00:57.820 how magicians plan for tricks gone awry and the lessons non-magicians can take from that preparation

00:01:02.240 and we even get into the mutual admiration of theodore roosevelt and houdini that they had for each

00:01:06.520 other and how houdini personified roosevelt's ideal of living the strenuous life really fun show packed

00:01:11.460 with lots of actionable takeaways after the show's over check out the show notes at aom.is

00:01:15.400 slash spellbound david kwang welcome to the show thank you for having me so you just wrote a book

00:01:31.340 published a book called spellbound you have an interesting background you are a magician but you

00:01:36.400 also have done some other interesting things with crossword puzzles for those who aren't familiar with

00:01:40.820 your work can you tell us a bit about your background sure i am a rare hybrid of magician

00:01:46.700 and puzzle maker i find that all magic tricks are puzzles in a certain sense so it was a perfect

00:01:55.360 cross-pollination of my two passions i routinely write crossword puzzles for the new york times

00:02:01.700 games magazine i've had crosswords in the la times wall street journal and my magic show is a fun

00:02:09.500 cerebral nerdy brainy magic show where i i test the audience to try to figure out the answers to

00:02:16.960 all the puzzles so what came first the crossword puzzle interest or the the magic interest they were

00:02:23.420 both childhood hobbies magic came first i was about seven years old when i saw my first magician and

00:02:30.280 and knew that i had to follow that path but i started playing scrabble competitively as a teenager

00:02:38.220 and then started solving the crossword puzzle every day and then making crossword puzzles when i was in

00:02:45.280 college i mean that's amazing i think most kids they go through a magic phase i went through a magic

00:02:49.560 phase uh i would i came of age when like david copperfield was doing his big you know making the

00:02:54.940 statue of liberty disappear levitating i was like that's what i'm gonna do i'd have my mom take me to

00:03:00.000 the library every week to check out every single magic book but it didn't stick with me why why do you

00:03:04.960 think it stuck with you every kid definitely has a magic phase you're not alone on that and every kid

00:03:09.840 gets his first magic set i think it stuck with me there was some innate desire to be on the other

00:03:17.380 side of the curtain and know how things are done when i was seven years old i saw a magician performing

00:03:23.140 at a pumpkin patch in upstate new york i'm from rochester new york and i'll never forget this

00:03:29.120 the magician took a little red sponge ball he put it in my hand he picked up a second one he made it

00:03:35.280 disappear and when i opened my hand i had two and many magicians say that this is one of the greatest

00:03:40.340 tricks ever invented the the sponge ball trick it packs such a punch right but then there was this

00:03:47.560 moment that i will never forget which is that he took a little red sponge ball and he put it in my

00:03:53.220 father's hand and then he picked up a second one made it disappear and when my father opened his hand

00:03:57.620 he had two and my father is a biochemist he is this omniscient figure that knows everything about

00:04:05.920 the world especially to a seven-year-old kid and when the scientist did not know how it was done i

00:04:11.460 knew at that moment that i had to pursue magic that's awesome so you've been able to use your

00:04:16.540 incorporate your crossword puzzles into your your magic routine but in your book spellbound you you go in

00:04:23.240 another direction you bring your magic and your crossword work and go apply it to a different

00:04:27.460 realm of of life and that's business it's it's called spellbound the seven principles of illusion

00:04:32.780 to captivate audiences and unlock the secrets of success where did you get this idea of applying

00:04:38.880 principles and ideas from the world of illusion to the world of business well i'll first say that

00:04:45.620 99 of magicians most of them pretend in some way or another to have superpowers you know there are

00:04:54.280 mind-reading magicians there are the ones that pretend they can float and levitate it's all approach

00:05:00.640 it's all character but there are a small number of practitioners that acknowledge up front that magic

00:05:09.100 is science and that it's sleight of hand and that it's being one step ahead or two steps ahead of

00:05:14.380 everybody else and that is my approach writing this book was all it was an extension of that approach

00:05:20.800 to say look ladies and gentlemen i am a magician i am going to fool you this is all tricks and i find

00:05:30.420 that giving people a little glimpse behind the curtain is the best way for them to enjoy magic i i come

00:05:38.320 out of hollywood i worked in hollywood for a number of years and i took that approach on the now you see

00:05:44.360 me movie the uh bank heist movie with magicians robbing banks and we gave audiences a real taste

00:05:50.740 of how a magician thinks and i i've done the same thing with this book so my hope is that people will

00:05:56.520 have some takeaways that they'll they'll learn about the the different principles of illusion the way

00:06:02.440 that a magician thinks and how they can apply that to their own lives and do you think that kind of

00:06:06.280 magic what you're doing is more appealing to you know a more modern younger audience i think that's

00:06:11.420 what young people want nowadays i'm more attracted to that than say david copperfield doing his

00:06:16.280 elaborate presentation of i was a kid and i always wanted to fly that was cool when i was eight but

00:06:21.900 now that i'm 35 and a little jaded i i like to be in on it but also at the same time like to be fooled

00:06:27.600 well david copperfield is an absolute legend and he is the reason that most of us got into magic

00:06:32.020 but it has evolved and modern magic today it's much different and i think that it's evolved with

00:06:38.920 the technology if you think about what copperfield was doing he was making large monuments disappear

00:06:47.220 like the statue of liberty and today no magician can ever pull that off because everybody has

00:06:53.960 a cell phone with a camera on it and there's a video on the statue of liberty at all times

00:06:59.040 and with youtube now with tricks being exposed online you can so easily google how something is

00:07:08.160 done i think that magicians today especially the younger ones are not pretending to have superpowers

00:07:15.620 anymore i think there's a lot more acknowledging up front that these are tricks and that uh magicians

00:07:21.480 are simply one step ahead of everybody else so there's a little more exposure on the methods

00:07:28.040 but people are embracing it the magicians are embracing that and putting that into their

00:07:33.200 performance and that's very much what my approach was to this book was to embrace the principles of

00:07:39.520 illusion and share a little bit of the knowledge with everybody else you start out the book and i

00:07:44.360 thought this is interesting you highlight several ceos founders who at one point in their life were

00:07:50.860 practicing magicians or at least dabbled in it as a kid so any any one any successful owner business

00:07:57.300 owners that people might know of that were once uh magicians there are so many out there and to name

00:08:03.420 a few tony shea of zappos aaron levy of box we also have uh every hollywood director that you can

00:08:11.460 think of by the way because those art forms are so closely aligned jj abrams ryan johnson who has the

00:08:17.800 next star wars movie coming out the uh the great director of photography larry fong is a magician

00:08:22.560 daniel lubetsky of kind snacks and a very good friend of mine adam grant who is a uh a real force

00:08:29.380 in in leadership and management he he was the youngest tenured professor at wharton business

00:08:35.160 school adam grant and i we started the harvard magic club together so i think these people they all

00:08:42.660 embrace the idea of being in command and being a step ahead of everybody else and uh it's no it's no

00:08:50.080 coincidence that these are all successful people i think there were a couple of stories in business

00:08:55.640 that really had the light bulb turn on for me and i remember reading about a silicon valley executive

00:09:02.740 named tristan walker who had this really great story about a time when he used he didn't he didn't

00:09:11.120 realize this was a principle of magic but but i think it was and he used this method to kind of be in

00:09:17.720 control of his situation and here's the story tristan walker was in business school and he

00:09:23.320 really wanted to work for foursquare and this was 2009 so he emailed incessantly the ceo foursquare

00:09:31.360 dennis crowley saying i would love to come work for you please please get back to me i'll do anything you

00:09:38.000 want and finally after the eighth email dennis said okay the next time you're in new york we'll sit down

00:09:45.500 and have coffee and tristan wrote back well i'm actually scheduled to be in new york tomorrow

00:09:50.980 and they agreed on a time and the meeting was set and that and moments later tristan got online and

00:09:57.480 booked his ticket a red eye to new york to fulfill that promise of being there and i think that's

00:10:03.240 something that magicians do all the time is that we that's just one of the the principles is that we

00:10:09.560 will claim something is done before it's actually done but we know we can get there we know we can

00:10:14.760 fulfill that promise and i saw a similar trick pulled by richard branson and this is on the virgin

00:10:21.980 airlines website on how the airline got started and he was uh he was younger at the time he was

00:10:30.140 trying to go to the british virgin islands i think he said he had a beautiful lady waiting for him

00:10:34.700 and the flight was canceled so he walked over to a charter company and he hired a plane and by the way

00:10:41.400 this was before branson had the gazillion dollars that he has now and he hired that plane and then

00:10:47.280 he had to fulfill that promise so he he borrowed a chalkboard and wrote virgin airlines 39 one way

00:10:55.840 to the british virgin islands and went around the airport and collected all the other passengers and

00:10:59.980 that's how he was able to uh to fulfill the promise and the cost of the airline that he just

00:11:05.380 chartered so that's a little glimpse uh and that's what inspired me to to write this book all right so

00:11:10.660 we'll get more into specific some of these principles that business owners apply that

00:11:14.520 you also find in the world of magic but i thought it was you had an interesting vignette in your book

00:11:18.420 about uh theodore roosevelt and houdini we're big fans of theodore roosevelt here at aom can you talk

00:11:24.260 a bit about houdini's connection with tr i mean why why did i think houdini had a fascination with tr but

00:11:29.680 also tr was attracted or drawn to houdini as well what was going on there teddy roosevelt is certainly

00:11:35.260 the manliest man out there and i think houdini is a is a close second and it's it's not a coincidence

00:11:40.360 that they were part of the same era i think at the time this was this was really the beginning of

00:11:48.640 the the the perfect man this sort of idealized perfect man there's actually a great book that

00:11:54.660 everyone should check out which is called houdini tarzan and the perfect man by john casson

00:11:59.400 and i took a look at that for this book and in this era this is where you have the the beginning

00:12:06.020 of bodybuilding and people going to coney island and showing off their their sculpted bodies and

00:12:11.860 this is this is largely why houdini rose to such fame at this time because he exhibited this idealized

00:12:19.760 strong man persona um and houdini was known for and ultimately uh well do you know do you know how

00:12:28.140 houdini died do you have a yeah he had that that bit where he had people just punch him in the gut

00:12:32.740 exactly exactly and and and many people think that he died in the in the water torture cell because of

00:12:37.840 what's been portrayed in the movies but that's exactly what he was doing he was tightening his

00:12:42.200 his abdominal muscles and letting people punch him in the gut and he could take the punch this led

00:12:47.640 to his death because he wasn't prepared for a punch when he was up in montreal and a couple of

00:12:52.960 students uh approached him and and socked him right in the stomach and it ruptured his spleen but

00:12:58.680 before that of course houdini was uh the manliest man out there and he met teddy roosevelt i believe

00:13:07.240 for the first time on a uh transatlantic voyage from the uk back to new york in 1914 and there's a famous

00:13:17.320 story about houdini pulling one over on the rough rider himself and on this voyage well it first

00:13:25.580 starts with prep work which is a big which is a big big principle in magic and houdini had found out

00:13:30.340 from his booking agent that roosevelt was going to be on this uh on this cruise so he went straight to

00:13:38.500 the london telegraph to research where roosevelt had been and roosevelt was out of office this time

00:13:46.900 he had sort of become a private citizen once again the details weren't out there so this was

00:13:52.740 information that the public was not privy to and houdini was able to find out that he was in south

00:13:58.760 america exploring the river of doubt and armed with this information he decided to perform a spirit

00:14:08.180 slate routine on board the imperator the ship they were on and he was able to read roosevelt's mind

00:14:16.760 and basically what the spirit slates are are they are blank chalkboards you show that there's nothing

00:14:24.840 on on any side of the of the chalkboards and when you put them together a spirit will manifest certain

00:14:31.760 words so houdini asked the audience to write down questions now he was prepared for roosevelt and what

00:14:43.140 he would have done as the legend tells it is that he would have forced this question where were you

00:14:50.740 last christmas he would have either slipped in his own piece of paper with that written on it or he

00:14:55.860 had a stooge in the audience but just as it happens roosevelt asked the very question that he was hoping

00:15:02.380 to get which was where was i last christmas so he was not one step ahead but like 10 steps ahead when

00:15:08.520 when tr did that houdini took president roosevelt's slip of paper dropped it in between the spirit

00:15:15.160 slates and when he pulled it apart it said near the andes and there was a colored drawing of the map of

00:15:23.800 brazil the exact location where uh roosevelt had traveled and the next day roosevelt pulls

00:15:31.560 houdini aside and asks him quote man to man end quote if the spirits had really manifested these

00:15:39.480 words on the slates and and houdini said no colonel it was just hocus pocus so that's what the the legend

00:15:47.000 holds and i think it's a great encounter between the two of them that is this story of houdini and

00:15:51.880 roosevelt leads perfectly my next question about prep and in magic it's called loading up so what does it

00:15:59.080 mean to load up in the world of magic i mean i guess it's prep work but what i'd like to hear like

00:16:03.880 what what that involves and how can a business apply that concept to what they're doing loading up is a

00:16:09.880 term that i sort of commandeered and and and transformed into a principle we as magicians will

00:16:18.440 often say i was so loaded up when i walked into that bar or when i arrived at the party i was loaded up

00:16:26.200 and what that refers to are the hidden strings that we might have running up and down our sleeves or

00:16:33.080 the uh our pockets stuffed with various devices what can i really say here you know magnets and maybe a

00:16:41.720 fake thumb or two these different things that we have to make ourselves appear superhuman and this

00:16:48.920 is the idea of being a step ahead or three of everybody else so i took that phrase loaded up

00:16:57.080 and i turned it into an active verb loading up and this is referring to doing all the heavy lifting

00:17:04.600 ahead of time and then appearing magical in the moment how can businesses quote unquote load i mean why

00:17:12.120 is it important for businesses to do all the the heavy lifting behind the scenes and just make it appear

00:17:19.880 flawless and easy when they actually deliver to their customer well think about this example if you are

00:17:26.440 working on a project and your boss says i need this delivered by a certain date you can have already

00:17:34.600 done all the heavy lifting because you've anticipated that this uh assignment is coming and maybe you

00:17:42.520 work late nights maybe you do it over the weekend and you deliver it ahead of schedule but then you have

00:17:47.560 a choice you can appear superhuman as if you just instantly fulfill the task or you can reveal your

00:17:56.600 method you can reveal that you anticipated that this assignment was coming and you can reveal exactly how you

00:18:02.440 pulled it off with the extra behind the scenes work and that's kind of the choice actually that magicians

00:18:08.040 make right is do do you appear to be the david copperfield david blaine sort or do you kind of

00:18:15.560 expose and get credit for your cleverness and get credit for all the the the hard work and smarts that went

00:18:22.280 into something so i mean that's question like how do you decide which one which approach is best i'm not

00:18:27.080 sure that's a that's a personal choice that people make uh i i i lobby for the the second choice which

00:18:34.040 has been my approach through magic when i perform and i do my feats with with scrabble words or crossword

00:18:42.680 puzzles or or math i'm revealing to the audience that i've spent thousands and thousands of hours

00:18:47.960 memorizing these things and i think that i get a a credit for it in that way and and at that end of the

00:18:53.800 spectrum you kind of become superhuman in a different way because you're so insane as to

00:19:00.440 to put in all that time so that that's my approach yeah yeah i was thinking in the world of business

00:19:05.320 if you're an employee and your boss gives you that deadline and you you load it up right and you're

00:19:09.640 able to just present it to him and you pass it off like oh it was nothing that could backfire on you

00:19:15.000 because your boss be like wow this guy's awesome i'll just throw more work at him because he can do it

00:19:19.560 so quickly and so easily yeah you might you might get bogged down with a lot of extra work i do think

00:19:24.440 you would hold the cards against your your chest for that yeah you you wouldn't want to you wouldn't

00:19:30.520 you wouldn't want to tip your hand uh in that situation so one sub principle of being loaded up of

00:19:38.760 being prepared is the one ahead principle and i'll teach you a really quick trick that you can do with

00:19:43.960 the one ahead principle uh and by the way i don't think this is the the kind of trick that uh the

00:19:49.080 magic police is going to break down my door uh because i'm uh revealing uh this is just a fun

00:19:55.480 silly trick that you can do so so try this you you spread the cards in front of you but you secretly

00:20:01.400 memorize the bottom card let's let's say it's a three of diamonds now this card is your one ahead

00:20:06.840 card you are now ahead of the audience with this card and then you wave your hand magically over the

00:20:12.440 spread of face down cards sensing the value of another card and you pick it up and you say

00:20:20.120 before looking at it this is the three of diamonds and you look at it to verify your claim and you say

00:20:26.360 yes i'm correct but you don't show this card to the audience you keep it to yourself and you are now

00:20:32.600 getting the value of a new card let's call the queen of spades so you're now one ahead you continue

00:20:38.200 to be one ahead with the queen of spades and then you pick up a new card sensing what it might be and

00:20:44.760 you say this is the queen of spades and you pick that one up and you look at it and let's say it's

00:20:50.600 actually the seven of hearts but you say yes i'm correct and then you go for a third card you say i will

00:20:57.880 pick up the seven of hearts the value that you just looked at you pick up the bottom card your original

00:21:03.720 one ahead card which you remember was the three of diamonds and you've now caught up the value of

00:21:10.040 all three cards has been said to your audience and your grand finale is to remind them that you

00:21:15.800 predicted all of the cards so that's a that's a fun little trick that you can do with the one

00:21:19.960 ahead principle and there was a a banker named lou horwitz who i interviewed who used this one ahead

00:21:27.560 principle in a way to change the way that entertainment financing uh took place and this

00:21:35.400 was back in the 70s and he he was producing a tv show they had paid 125 000 of their own money the

00:21:46.520 producers did this to create the pilot and the studio was set to pay them back upon delivery of the

00:21:54.040 pilot so what lou horwitz proposed was that the producers could assign the payment to his bank

00:22:02.520 in exchange for a new loan so in other words the studio's 125 000 would put the lender one step ahead

00:22:13.080 of the customer and create a risk-free loan so in other words they were uh they were financing

00:22:21.800 with their own money but they were always covered for it and the show that he made using that method

00:22:27.320 was the mary tyler moore show so there's a real example of how uh getting a step ahead of your

00:22:32.600 audience can can produce results another important aspect of magic is narrative what happens as a

00:22:40.840 magician when you're doing a trick you don't have any a story going along with it does the trick fall

00:22:46.200 flat does it is it not as impressive why is it so important to have a story when you're going when

00:22:50.760 you're performing a trick problem is the sad reality is that most magicians do not have story with their

00:22:57.640 magic tricks and this is why i think there is this uh kind of that's why there are so many birthday

00:23:04.440 party magicians that don't go anywhere the really great magicians out there imbue narrative and dramatic

00:23:11.880 arc into their stories i think david copperfield did this the best copperfield shows they really hit

00:23:20.200 that emotional core in the audience there's swelling music and lights and and there's images of his

00:23:28.280 grandfather and he he copperfield was a master of taking narrative and and putting it right in the

00:23:35.800 hands of the audience and getting them to feel like they were a part of the show so even on a

00:23:42.120 smaller level if you're doing a card trick for somebody there should be a story there you should

00:23:47.480 get people to to understand the follow the arc of what you're doing and unfortunately most magicians

00:23:54.680 don't take advantage of this they just they just kind of do the trick there's a you know the audience

00:24:00.520 might find it cool for a moment but it doesn't stay with them right so in business the same thing

00:24:05.080 applies you can provide just a quality product that's amazing that works that makes people's

00:24:10.200 lives better it really doesn't stick oftentimes until you have a story that goes along with it

00:24:15.560 right that's right i did a lot of research talking to social scientists and uh neurobiologists about

00:24:22.920 the effects of story and one one scientist in particular he's become a very good friend paul zack

00:24:29.800 is a neuro economist and he discovered oxytocin he he discovered the the hormone that is released that

00:24:39.560 increases our sensitivity and our our response to social cues that makes us more empathetic and when

00:24:49.000 if you look at commercials and advertising when these things tap into our mirror neurons the parts of our

00:24:56.280 our brain that respond to what's going on on screen we will we will liken what we're seeing to our own

00:25:03.960 emotional experiences and and the message will be more effective because when you see

00:25:09.080 when you see your action hero on screen jumping from a train your your palms are sweating in the

00:25:14.840 audience right because you are experiencing what he's experiencing your mirror neurons are firing so

00:25:20.760 when you can engage people in an emotional level people will be more receptive to your product

00:25:25.720 another concept for magic is this idea of controlling the frame what is the frame in the world of magic

00:25:31.720 and what are the different ways magicians what are how do magicians control the frame when they're

00:25:36.040 performing a trick controlling the frame is a phrase that we magicians use to describe

00:25:42.280 misdirection and our abilities to command people's attention if you think about a performance you are

00:25:51.880 watching a certain area of the stage if it's a close-up magic performance you're watching

00:25:58.280 the hands as they deal cards on the table this is the frame this is the proscenium of the stage through

00:26:06.440 which you are viewing the trick and uh there's absolutely a reason why filmmaking came out of

00:26:15.480 illusion uh at the turn of the last century and we could talk about that in a moment this frame can be

00:26:23.480 moved so if you want to sneak something out of your pocket as a magician you are going to move the

00:26:31.640 frame up in a way because maybe you pull a coin out of the air everybody's attention goes up there

00:26:39.080 their whole frame of viewing goes up there and you can you can sneak something out of your pocket or

00:26:43.880 from behind the chair or wherever you've hidden it let's talk about film how did film use this concept

00:26:49.800 of controlling the frame to to do what they do filmmaking really rose out of illusion and one of the

00:26:58.200 most central figures there was george meliez who was a magician and the the father of special effects

00:27:06.200 and cinema and he actually took over the theater robert houdin robert houdin was the great french

00:27:14.680 magician who is considered the father of modern magic now robert houdin was the gentleman who made magic

00:27:22.600 safe as an evening performance think of magic before as something that was just kind of

00:27:28.920 done on the streets as sort of a juggling act right well robert houdin he had his audiences put on

00:27:38.040 evening clothes you put on your white tie and tails you come to his theater to the teafra robert houdin and

00:27:44.600 and you view uh an evening of astonishment and illusion and george meliez took over that theater

00:27:51.560 so if you think about filmmaking it's controlling the the the frame through which people view

00:28:00.840 illusions and um to go back to storytelling i often say that a good magician like a good filmmaker can

00:28:11.480 control where you're looking but a great magician and a great filmmaker can control what you're

00:28:19.080 feeling and that is that's that's really commanding not just where your audience is looking but

00:28:27.400 the audience's engagement with it with the narrative arc of the film so any examples outside the magic world

00:28:33.960 of individuals controlling the frame to um you know put forth the narrative so they could be successful

00:28:40.360 but what they're trying to do i think fdr is a great example of somebody who controlled the frame

00:28:46.440 controlled what his audience was taking away i know you love roosevelt here at the art of maliness and

00:28:53.560 and fdr as we know was burdened with polio and at the 1924 dnc he had to appear to his audience that

00:29:06.520 he was in control in command because this you know masculinity was the was an absolute requirement for fire

00:29:13.160 for higher office at this time you could not appear weak in any way so so he and his team and his

00:29:19.400 family devised a way to to stay in command here and basically he was always in his chair ahead of

00:29:27.240 time so you didn't see him walking onto the stage it was a strong oak chair to support his weight he had

00:29:34.440 braces on his legs to keep them from buckling and then when he got up he would lean on his son and and

00:29:41.320 aids were nearby just in case he were to topple they could catch him quickly everything was sort of

00:29:47.080 planned out and when he returned and four years later when he returned to the dnc this time

00:29:52.920 envisioning a run for the presidency they had to further this uh command and he had a cane in his

00:30:02.040 left hand he would lean on his his son's right arm which was at 90 degrees to sort of be an eye beam

00:30:10.680 kind of support for him and even though he was slowly walking and sort of uh waddling as he would

00:30:17.320 go over to the lectern he was in control and when he got there the lectern was bolted into the floor

00:30:24.840 solid enough to hold his full weight so no one was the wiser he he spoke with a very clear and powerful

00:30:34.760 tenor in his voice and uh was in control the entire time so yeah the thing was he was also in

00:30:41.320 like an excruciating pain the entire time like people didn't realize that but like as you said

00:30:45.640 he put on this air of confidence tilt his chin up and uh he controlled the frame well one of my

00:30:51.800 favorite sections on the book that i thought was really useful and i was able to it made me think

00:30:57.560 about how i could apply it immediately was this idea of of conjuring an out so what is what does

00:31:04.280 that mean to conjure an out in the world of magic a magician cannot mess up his show that's sort of

00:31:11.160 the number one rule if there's any flaw in a magic show it tears down the entire building i'm sure

00:31:20.120 you've seen magic shows and the performer has been great but if you glimpse a flash of a coin in the

00:31:27.240 magician's hand you say to your friend he was good but i saw this right so magicians have no room for

00:31:35.560 error so we always have outs built into our tricks if something goes wrong we are able to conjure up

00:31:44.440 a different ending to the trick that you are not even aware of so the beauty of a magician's out is

00:31:51.000 it's not just a backup plan but it's a backup plan that still puts you ahead of the audience and still

00:31:57.800 makes you appear uh amazing and superhuman so so for all of my tricks there's always an out if not

00:32:04.840 two or three of them what are some of the ways the magician might plan an out in advance i mean this is

00:32:09.000 a this kind of ties in with loading up right like it's preparation but even preparing for failure

00:32:14.680 sometimes that's absolutely right because the out kind of has a double meaning which which also can

00:32:21.640 mean the alternate path you can take for a trick so you've asked the perfect question i broke it down

00:32:28.600 into two types of outs there's the safety out which is a trick that might go in many different ways it's

00:32:37.000 built into the trick and we could talk about that uh my favorite story about the backyard card trick in a

00:32:43.320 moment and then there's the emergency out which i liken to the pivot in business which is everything

00:32:50.520 is completely gone wrong you have to shift course and and still come out fine one of my favorite

00:32:56.120 tricks you talk about in the book is this one you did i forgot who it was some it was some highfalutin

00:33:00.680 guy lived in the hollywood hills but it involved you pretending that you were burying cards in his

00:33:06.680 backyard or something like that well that's the that's the end of the trick yes this this is one of my

00:33:11.800 favorite stories my friend blake voight and i blake is an amazing magician and trick builder and blake and

00:33:19.080 i went over to a friend's house to discuss con artistry and deception and because this was a hollywood

00:33:28.040 director who was working on something like that and um we we showed up to the the house late we were

00:33:35.880 mortified that we we couldn't find the house we were doing tricks in the living room and when we finished

00:33:41.000 gentleman asked us to do one more trick and we said oh we kind of just did all our best stuff but

00:33:46.440 um we can try one more do you have a do you have a driveway that we could go to an outdoor space and

00:33:53.320 the the director said actually i have a i have a lovely backyard let's go out there so we said okay

00:33:58.360 sure let's let's try that instead and we got out to the backyard and i said to the director name

00:34:03.160 any playing card and he said the five of hearts and then blake said point anywhere in the yard

00:34:09.560 that you like and the director pointed at about two o'clock from where we were standing and i had him

00:34:14.840 go over to the to the bush there that he pointed at and dig in the mulch at the base of that bush and

00:34:21.080 there he himself pulled up five of hearts i then took out my ipad and revealed to him how we did it

00:34:28.520 because this was a lesson on how you can get a step ahead of people and that video showed us burying

00:34:35.240 52 playing cards in the backyard a couple hours before the meeting and then we buttressed this

00:34:40.840 illusion with what i like to call the illusion of spontaneity which is that we then had to pretend

00:34:46.440 that we weren't prepared for this at all which is why we came to the house late on purpose claiming

00:34:51.880 we couldn't find it because we had never been there before that's why we did not offer to do this

00:34:57.960 last trick we waited for the director to ask us to do another one and and we said oh we don't

00:35:02.120 really have anything else but we can try something uh and then we also offered to do the trick at that

00:35:07.880 point in the driveway and we let him upgrade us to the backyard so there's so much going on here

00:35:15.160 there's another chapter in the in the book called the illusion of free choice which is where you allow

00:35:21.560 people to to believe that they're in control of the entire trick but you've you've planned everything

00:35:27.000 out there's the illusion of spontaneity which i mentioned and then there's having all these

00:35:31.480 different outs all these different roads that you could go down to finish the trick and then

00:35:37.560 there's a little bit of a story device that we used as well so if you actually when you read the book

00:35:42.840 this is chapter three about narrative you'll find out at the end of that chapter that everything i just

00:35:48.520 told you was part of a scripted story and that we were actually pulling something else off at the

00:35:54.280 same time so it's it's probably my favorite uh probably my favorite trick that i've ever done

00:35:58.920 and it's certainly my favorite trick in the book so let's talk about this applying this the conjuring

00:36:03.800 and out to the world of business any examples from there i mean you mentioned pivoting but can

00:36:09.000 businesses also plan for safety outs in their business plan so if something doesn't go according

00:36:14.920 to plan they can just immediately do something else absolutely i think having multiple outs multiple

00:36:22.280 uh roads that you can go down is essential for for hitting that target getting to the destination

00:36:30.600 that you want to get to so think about this if you're pitching an idea to a room you can iterate which

00:36:38.040 is sort of the modern term for quick pivoting based on their responses you could have five different

00:36:45.000 presentations to go they're ready on your computer and you call up the one that's that's needed based on

00:36:51.720 their responses it's like going into an interview and based on your interviewers responses to what

00:36:59.400 you've said you have five different versions of your resume in your in your portfolio and you take

00:37:06.920 out the one that that that's most applicable to what the conversation has been so it's again it's it's

00:37:12.440 all about being prepared and a step ahead and then applying it at the right time so we talked about

00:37:19.400 safety outs basically it's having multiple plans um in place and depending on the situation the

00:37:24.920 circumstances you can roll out a different plan that's the safety out and applying that into the

00:37:29.320 business let's talk a bit about the the pivot out there's the emergency out when everything's gone

00:37:34.920 wrong and you need to pivot how can you get out of that situation i think one of my favorite

00:37:39.880 examples from the world of business involves uh stuart butterfield who is an avid puzzler and gamer

00:37:46.760 as i understand and he created something called game never ending now this was a massive uh online

00:37:55.720 multiplayer game where you walk around in a world and you interact with people and it was it was not

00:38:02.840 uh performing he there were avid followers of game never ending but it wasn't it wasn't performing in

00:38:09.560 the marketplace and he had to figure out how to pivot and he looked at what the most robust features

00:38:16.680 of the game were and he realized that when you're chatting with people you can very easily take an

00:38:25.000 image and drop it into the the chat box and it gets shared with everybody and uh stuart realized that

00:38:33.560 this was the direction that they had to take game never ending and they uh they turned it into flickr and

00:38:38.520 uh flickr was eventually sold to yahoo for 35 million dollars what's so fascinating to me about

00:38:45.560 stuart is that he's such an avid gamer that he tried it again he tried game never ending part two

00:38:53.080 which was was called glitch and once again it did not perform as he had hoped but i love his dedication to

00:39:01.880 to the gaming world and he he had again he had to look at how to pivot and what the robust features

00:39:08.600 of this version of the game were and realized that it was the the communication with others and the

00:39:14.280 chatting and the the the um the internal communication system and that turned into slack which is now worth

00:39:21.160 a gazillion dollars so you just have to take you have to trust your skill set that's a big thing for

00:39:26.120 pivoting and magicians in a magic show that's a big thing for pivoting in a magic show is if i have

00:39:31.640 a deck of cards and i'm walking around showing sleight of hand to people i am trusting to my skill set to

00:39:37.640 to iterate and and respond to people's reactions and change the trick on the fly and take advantage

00:39:45.000 of opportunities i'll tell you a story which is my favorite real-time trick that i ever did which

00:39:52.200 involved this was probably five years ago this is a moment that only comes around once a decade

00:39:59.240 for a magician and it's when everything just perfectly aligns and here's what happened i was

00:40:04.200 performing for an investment bank in philadelphia it was the night before the uh the conference where

00:40:12.120 i was going to be speaking so i was just doing some sleight of hand tricks at a bar and i had a deck of

00:40:17.720 cards and i had slipped into a gentleman's pocket the two of clubs i saw that he had an open pocket

00:40:26.280 it's the opposite of pick pocketing it's called put pocketing so i had put the two of clubs in his

00:40:31.640 pocket and i was i was a step ahead and if i had a second two of clubs at that point that would have

00:40:37.160 been ideal but i didn't this was a normal deck of cards so i thought here's what i'm gonna do i'm

00:40:42.200 gonna do a trick with the two of spades and then as the big climax of the trick i'm gonna say well

00:40:47.560 the two of spades has a has a sister card the two of clubs and i'm i'm gonna make it up here in this

00:40:52.360 man's coat over there but i didn't even get that far this sort of obnoxious banker comes over and says

00:41:00.360 hey uh hey magic trick guy if you think you're so good why don't you make the two of clubs appear

00:41:06.200 and in that moment i'm thinking like oh my god oh my god oh my god and you can't you can't break

00:41:09.800 character you have to like slow it down you have to maximize the effect because if you rush it you're

00:41:15.160 going to completely screw it up you can't make it too impossible that's a big principle here too

00:41:19.880 impossible if i'd snap my fingers right away and said look in your coat it would have revealed uh

00:41:26.040 people would have concluded that it was already there and it was a coincidence you can't make it

00:41:30.520 too impossible so i had to say okay two of clubs two clubs well let me see what i can do here and i

00:41:35.640 started shuffling the cards and then i mimed with my hand that i was making this two of clubs fly

00:41:43.000 through the air and i came just close enough to the guy's jacket but not touching it that it made it

00:41:48.680 possible and i snapped my fingers and i said take a look in your uh in your left pocket there and he

00:41:54.120 pulled out the the card and the obnoxious banker kind of stormed away i think defeated but

00:42:00.200 it was a glorious moment for me right there's an example of pivoting using the situation that was

00:42:05.400 thrown before you and adjusting and making it work for you that's right you have to you have to trust

00:42:10.440 to your skill set to your tool set and be able to react in the moment and and and change the outcome

00:42:15.960 of the trick well david this has been a great conversation where can people learn more about

00:42:21.240 your book and your work well i'm all over the internet you can find me on twitter at david

00:42:25.960 kwong i post tricks on instagram also at david kwong and i'll be speaking about the book in the

00:42:32.040 next few weeks with general assembly i'll be speaking in los angeles on the 10th and also in

00:42:38.360 new york on the 18th and all over the country at bookstores well david kwong thanks so much for your

00:42:43.640 time it's been a pleasure thank you so much it was great my guest name is david kwong his book is

00:42:48.280 spellbound it's available on amazon.com and bookstores everywhere also check out our show notes at

00:42:52.520 aom.is spellbound where you can find links to resources where you can delve deeper into this

00:42:57.040 topic well that wraps up another edition of the art of manliness podcast for more manly tips and

00:43:09.440 advice make sure to check out the art of manliness website at artofmanliness.com and if you enjoy our

00:43:13.260 podcasts have enjoyed the shows over the years really appreciate if you take a minute or two to

00:43:16.680 give us a review on itunes or stitcher that helps us out a lot as always thank you for your continued

00:43:20.680 support until next time this is brett mckay telling you to stay manly

The Art of Manliness - May 23, 2017

#306： What a Magician Can Teach You About Being More Successful

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