Magician's Secrets for Becoming More Commanding, Convincing, And Charismatic
Episode Stats
Summary
To be successful at their craft, magicians must possess the well-honed technical skills to pull off their mystifying tricks and clever sleights of hand, but as magician Steves Cohen observes, they must also be masters at attracting interest, holding attention, and leaving audiences with fond memories of their time together. Skills that everyone can use to persuade audiences, charm patrons, own a room and influence others.
Transcript
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brett mckay here and welcome to another edition of the art of manliness podcast
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to be successful at their craft magicians must possess the well-honed technical skills
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to pull off their mystifying tricks and clever sleights of hand but as magician steve cohen
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observes they must also be masters at attracting interest holding attention and leaving audiences
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with fond memories of their time together skills that everyone can use to persuade audiences
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charm dates own a room and influence others steve also known as the millionaire's magician
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is the author of win the crowd unlock the secrets of influence charisma and showmanship today on the
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show steve shares the insights he and his fellow magicians know on everything from taking command
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of a room to creating a compelling character to making a magical entrance steve shares how to
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build your boldness through put pocketing develop spontaneous resourcefulness get people wrapped up
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in the magic of your message by suggesting rather than stating increase your confidence by having
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a place for everything and everything in its place and much more at the end of our conversation he
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shares two of his most interesting tips and explains how to influence people to do what you want by
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using layered commands and the trailing orb after the show is over check out our show notes at
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awim.is slash win the crowd all right steve cohen welcome to the show thank you very much so you are a
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magician and you call yourself the millionaire's magician where did that descriptor come from and
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how are your magic shows different from say the ones you might see in las vegas okay well for the
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past 23 years i've been doing a live show in new york city i've also taken it around the world to
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various other major metropolises but new york city is my home base for 17 of those years i performed at
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the waldorf astoria hotel in the penthouse suite so i think that kind of speaks to the millionaire's
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magician moniker is that the people who come to the waldorf astoria were really kind of uh you know
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people who were enjoying the finer things in life so i performed the show at the waldorf for as i said
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17 actually 17 and a half years moved the show to the new york palace hotel which is a really ultra
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luxury 19th century mansion in the middle of manhattan right behind saint patrick's cathedral
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and when people come to the magic show it's a real experience it's not just like you're going to a
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conference room or going into you know a bar it's actually a 19th century parlor which has gilded
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ceilings and beautiful marble pillars and persian rugs and the experience is one that you kind of
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you know will think about afterwards as a step back in time so that's really what i think differs from
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my show with a lot of other magic shows is that i'm trying to honor the history of magic and bring it
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back to life again many times magicians try to be all current and make something which is very you
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know of the times but in my case we have everyone dress up in cocktail attire and it's very elegant
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and kind of i wouldn't say stayed evening because it's not that at all it's really fun but it is more
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of a formal dress-up affair and i've had many people say to me afterwards like why did you make us dress
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up and then you know when they walk in they say oh and now i get it because you're in this really
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ultra luxury 19th century mansion it looks like you're walking into versailles so it's very intimate
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so i think maybe people have been to a big magic show there's fog machines and lasers and you know
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maybe some tigers you're trying to go back to that where it's a small room a group of people and it's
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it's it's a very intimate experience that's correct yes so you know the maximum size audience that i
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perform for at the palace hotel for the my show chamber magic is 64 people so it's it's very
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intimate you know when anytime you're under 100 is is intimate so the reason i brought you on is
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back in 2006 you wrote a book called win the crowd and what it is is you talk about what you do as a
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magician to practice good showmanship so being a great magician isn't just about mastering the technique
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that's an important part that's a necessary and essential part but it's not sufficient you also need
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to have charisma understand psychology understand presentation and the things you use as a magician
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you make the case they can apply to anybody who's trying to present themselves in the world whether
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in business or in their personal life and then win the crowd you start the book off highlighting what
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you call your five maxims of magic that can be used to persuade and influence and the first maxim is
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be bold so as a magician what does that look like for you to take risks don't be shy about the actions
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you take or the words that you speak and so really what that means to me is that you need to try things
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that you've never tried before otherwise you won't get results that you've never had before and so you
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know there's a great magician his name was jimmy grippo and the legend goes that jimmy grippo was sitting in a
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bank just before closing hour and he saw that the bank manager was about to close the safe that time
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locked safe and he just took this bold moment and he took a playing card that he had in his pocket
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let's say it was the three of diamonds and he just flung it with his hand he flung it and whipped it
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and it skirted underneath the door as the safe door was closing so now inside of this locked safe
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on the floor is a three of diamonds just sitting there unbeknownst to the bank manager or anyone
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else in that bank so now he walks away with the kind of a tingle in his eye and and he goes home
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and thinks how am i going to take advantage of this so the next day he goes back to the bank and he
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sees the bank manager and he says i'd like to show you a magic trick i remember me from yesterday and
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the manager's like yeah and so he says let me show you a card trick and he pulls out a deck of cards
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that matches the same card back design as the one that he had flung inside the vault and he made sure
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that this bank manager took a card which was identical the three of diamonds there's magic
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ways to do that and so after the bank manager took the three of diamonds he put the card back in the
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deck and jimmy grippo says now i'm going to make your card disappear and reappear inside that vault
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and the bank manager says that's impossible he said well open it up and he says i can't open it
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because it doesn't open until the time lock opens at 8 a.m so he says okay we'll just wait for it
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and they waited and they opened up the vault and sure enough on the floor is that three of diamonds
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and so that's a miracle right i mean the bank manager's eyes bulge out of his head he wouldn't
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stop talking about it and that's the type of story that would create legends that would actually pay off
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in great dividends for jimmy grippo for years to come look we're talking about it decades after he's
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died so you never would really know the outcome unless you gave it a try and that's really what
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boldness means to me as a magician is unless you try something that may fail you may not ever actually
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get any magnificent outcome now having said that what happens if he goes back to the bank and the
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manager wouldn't let him perform a card trick or what happens if the bank manager took the wrong card
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or what if the bank manager said you know go away we don't need to see this now we've got other
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things going on i have a you know manager's meeting well then that's a lost opportunity but at the same
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time he didn't really lose anything at all it was a trial which could eventually turn into something
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magnificent and if it fails it doesn't harm anyone so i think that's really what being bolder is wrapped
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up in so how can like regular people be more bold in their social interactions you think well i mean
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i think part of it is just to overcome your natural tendency to be quiet and to shut up just to become
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a bigger version of yourself so for instance let's say you're in an elevator and you see some random
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person just standing there the the likely response would just be to be quiet not say anything but if you
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want to practice being a little bit bolder one thing that you could do is just like say to that person
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hey nice sweater you're wearing there i like that or maybe the person might respond thank you
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maybe they'll think you're a creep maybe they'll ignore you and just get off the elevator but what
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you've just done is you've built up a little bit of a notch in your belt of being bold you've tried
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something you haven't tried before now admittedly it's very that's a simple drill right it's not
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something that would really be you know some great advancement in your ability to be bold however
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another example i give in the book which i love and i've actually done this to people and have it had
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done to me is what we call the quarter load and you know you've heard of pickpocketing right people
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go up to you and they bump into you and they steal your wallet if you're in the subway or if you're
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walking around in a crowded place that happens it has happened you know for centuries however this is
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the opposite it's called the quarter load you're put pocketing you're putting things into people's
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pockets and again this is just it sounds like a joke it sounds like a gag sounds like a ruse but
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i've done this many times and i think this can help you build up your courage and your boldness and
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your ability to feel like you can do things you haven't done before so what i do is i walk around
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with a bunch of quarters in my pocket and in these days hardly anyone carries change but i have done this
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for many years and when you see someone you kind of just tap them and one of the quarters you've had
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hidden in your hand i forgot to mention you hide one quarter inside of your fingers and when you tap
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the person you load the quarter into their jacket pocket now it could be their side pocket it could be
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their breast pocket it could be their purse if it's a woman it could be you know a shirt pocket it
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could be any sort of a pocket but the idea is to try to load this coin inside of someone's pocket
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now why would you do that it seems like a foolish task for me to give you what it does it gives you
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this giddy feeling that you've just invaded their space that you're not stealing anything from them
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you're not taking anything from them in fact you're giving them value you're giving them a little bit of
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money not very much admittedly but you're giving them something and at the same time you're walking
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away thinking i just got away with something and it's made me stronger and it's so foolish and it sounds
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ridiculous and i've had people say that's how you're going to teach someone to become bolder
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and i've had people do it to me and they walk up to me and they're just talking to me they pat me on
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the chest like hey how's it going cohen and then i go home and sure enough i find a quarter in my
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pocket one man did it to me he loaded an amethyst crystal into my pocket and then he emailed me the
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next day saying see i got you and it gave him this sense of power it gives the people who've done this
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to me this sense of power and it's not much power but it gives you the feeling of what it feels like
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to be bold so the second maxim is expect success and i think this is with grippo he not only was
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he bold but he expected success with this trick as a magician when you're working how do you go into
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a show expecting success well you know i've got an interesting story about this so one of my very
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close friends unfortunately passed away at a young age was named mark sisher he was a great magician
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he had just graduated from college worked for a couple of years before passing away but i remember
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i was living overseas i was living in tokyo japan at the time and i got a letter from him because this
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is before the age of email and before cell phones this is we're talking you know decades back and he
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sent me a typewritten letter and in the letter he said steve i figured out how to perform magic
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more effectively and what he wrote was that he doesn't go into his performance venues thinking
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that it's an adversarial relationship but he goes in there assuming that the audience already loves him
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and he said by assuming that my audience already loves me then i don't have to be aggressive towards
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them to try to push them to like me i thought that was really interesting because you know magic in
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general is rather adversarial right i mean i'm going to fool you you can't catch me right that's
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what a lot of magic is and the audience if given that prompt will probably say okay i will try to
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catch you and you're not going to fool me so so the difference being now if you know like my friend
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mark sisher said if you go in there assuming that people are already going to love you you're expecting
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success and that changes the tone of the performance it changes the tone of the engagement
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that you're going to have with your with your audience now having said that most people who are
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listening to this i'm assuming are not magicians so what would that mean then for someone else well
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i would like write down for example the likely outcomes of what an experience what an engagement might
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be and think of what's the best possible way that this can possibly go so whether you're having a
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business meeting or a presentation think of what the best possible outcome is and then actually focus
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on that a lot of times we think about what the negative things are like what can go wrong you know
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never apologize never panic never go into something thinking okay you know i'm going to this is going to
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fail you know i just go into my performances thinking i've done this before i know it's going to work
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and it's going to work so it's very you know it's kind of basic it's kind of a simple
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thinking but if you know what your desired outcome is then you can veer towards that in the right
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direction i think oftentimes when people give public speeches they're afraid that everyone's just
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judging them and looking at all their mistakes and really if you think about it when i'm listening to
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someone give a speech i'm rooting for them like i want them to do well like i want them to succeed
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and even when they have a slip up i'm not like oh what a dumb dumb i'm just like that's all right
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you can recover from this and that can happen in social interactions too i think when you know
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you're interacting with somebody at least what i am interacting with somebody i'm not thinking
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boy this person what a dumb dumb i'm thinking hey i want this person to to do okay here so i think that
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mentality can apply to anybody how do you expect success when things go wrong right so i imagine you've
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done thousands and thousands of shows not every trick goes off the way it's supposed to so what do
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you do when something doesn't go as planned so you can still maintain that idea of expect success
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right well here's the thing yes i have done thousands of shows in fact this public show chamber magic
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will be celebrating its six thousandth performance this fall and this is in 2023 so you know if you've
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done you know this the show is nearly two hours long you know 12 000 hours of performing lots of things
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have gone wrong and because lots of things have gone wrong i've built up kind of a an arsenal of
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ways to get around that maybe that means that i'm seeing something happen i see something going south
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before the audience does and i have what's basically a plan b and a plan c magicians like to call these
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outs and an out is basically just knowing a possible ending that would not be the number one desirable
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ending but it's the number two or number three desirable ending and it could be you know a little
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less effective but it's still an ending so i think that one of the great things that you could do is
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if you are going to give a presentation or a public speech if you're giving any sort of uh you know a
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sales talk it's nice to challenge yourself with what could go wrong and then have contingencies so it's
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not worth panicking it's not worth apologizing if something goes wrong you don't even have to say
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anything you just say okay let's try it try again i've dropped cards i've dropped things in front of an
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audience i've had props fail when i had important people in the audience and remember i'm performing
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for you know people who are you know celebrities for billionaires for heads of state and you don't
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want to be making mistakes in front of these people but by putting undue pressure on yourself then
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most likely you might actually be moving in the wrong direction so typically what i like to do is give
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myself the leeway of making five mistakes and i learned this from one of my mentors and teachers
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and friends is juan tamari's a very famous spanish magician from madrid spain he says that he gives
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himself the leeway to make five errors because you know you're going you're human you know that you're
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liable to make a mistake so if you make a mistake why be so hard on yourself so what tamari says is if
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you make a mistake first mistake you just chalk it off number one that's mistake number one and you
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just keep moving forward as another friend of mine says it ain't shakespeare so if you make a mistake
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it's okay and if you make mistake number two and you're like okay there was mistake number two to
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be expected within my given five mistakes in this show make mistake number three and you're like okay
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well hold on a second maybe this isn't the audience maybe this might be me let me really kind of drill
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down here and focus on what's going wrong mistake number four i actually have never gotten that far
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but i would probably be thinking to myself maybe i shouldn't have drunk that beer before this show
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and then mistake number five would be like okay you know we're on red alert but still within the
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range of allowables so the point being if you know that you're human which we all are it's okay to make
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a mistake and audiences are forgiving and even with the magic trick where if someone sees the hidden
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handkerchief sticking out of your hand you know it's like okay well how else would i do the trick of
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course i have two but that makes it much harder to make them both disappear and then make both the
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handkerchiefs disappear so you know there's lots of different ways that you can think on your toes
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to just kind of get out of something if you made a mistake and that's just being resourceful i like
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to call it spontaneous resourcefulness and that goes into another one of my maxims which is be prepared
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and we could talk about that one later yeah well we'll talk about i think that's the last one you
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have there okay so expect success go with a positive attitude think about how things can go right
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and then have contingency plans if things don't go according to the original plan the third maxim is
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don't state suggest so flesh that out for us what does that look like okay well this is something
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that you know i've actually learned with the character that i've created which is the millionaire's
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magician so millionaire's magician doesn't necessarily mean that we check people's bank balances at the
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front door when they're checking in but you know i am a character i've created a character and i portray
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a character on stage and what i like to think of is anyone when you're in front of an audience
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is playing a character now it maybe it's just an enlargement or enhancement of yourself when you're
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off stage or when you're not in front of you know of an audience but you're basically creating
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a a visual and an auditory vision of what you should be like what you're what you want your audience to
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take away so do you want your audience to think of you as someone conservative someone funny do you
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want to think of you as a an open collar person versus a button-down collar person and necktie no
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necktie dress no you know casual clothes i personally am wearing a tuxedo when i perform i
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wear you know an evening wear or sometimes i wear a morning suit and what it does is suggest how i
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expect my audience to behave with me if i were wearing a t-shirt and jeans and you know black
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sneakers when performing in my venue it wouldn't make sense if i was a character in a book or a movie
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the author wouldn't write about it would be such a disconnect to have someone casual in such a
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formal environment so the venue plus my attitude plus my clothing plus the way i groom myself and
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the way i speak all of these kind of suggest that the audience should act a certain way toward me
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and fortunately by making this large you know kind of stage that people are coming into they're
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stepping into a scene in a play in a way and that's how i like to think of you know suggesting as
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opposed to stating we don't tell people you're going to be stepping back in time walking into
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a 19th century parlor you know we just once they walk in they kind of discover it themselves and
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then they react in the way that i've kind of set them up to i think that's actually a better
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mechanism rather than for me to force it down their throat it'll be kind of an insult to your
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intelligence if i just said to you i possess magical powers and you're going to believe in my
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special abilities people would say come on you know who do you think you are but if i slowly
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wrap them up into this world where they start seeing incredible things happen and they realize
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that this is a step out of reality then they enter my world and i've seen this not only in magic i've
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seen great salesmen sales people do this you know even if you go to a sale like a seminar like let's
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say tony robbins or someone who's a motivational speaker like during the time that you're with that
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person you are wrapped up in their world and it's not because they forced you to but it's because
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you responded to the suggestions that they made okay so if a regular person if you want people to
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treat you with respect and authority then dress that way act that way don't tell people you have
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to respect yeah usually if you have to tell people you must respect me i've lost already of course of
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course i remember what this happened one time i had a very horrible performance it was in long
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island this uh women's event that i got hired to do and they were not there to watch a magic show
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they were there to kibitz with each other and they were there to it was like some sort of a um
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like a flea market type of thing that i don't even know why they hired me to perform at it but it
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was just an awkward environment for me to perform in and all through the show the audience was not
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really paying attention they were just chit-chatting with each other and at one point i realized
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i can't go on i can't continue this performance i was standing on a platform and nobody was paying
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attention so i stopped the show and i walked off and then this lady who had hired me walked on and
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said come on everyone this guy is really good you should pay attention to him you should pay attention
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to him he's really good and i walked back up on stage and it was even worse because by begging
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you know it it just the whole thing fell apart so yeah that was that was an example of trying to
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convince someone with your words that you're good is not as good as trying to convince them
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just by your suggestions we're gonna take a quick break for your words from our sponsors
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and now back to the show so the fourth maxim is practice practice practice walk us through the
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amount of practice you have done and still do as a magician like what does your practice process look
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like okay so i'm practicing all the time i've been doing magic since i was six i'm now 52 and there's
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not a day that goes by where i'm not with a deck of cards in my hands or practicing with coins or other
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small objects sometimes i'll practice a move a sleight of hand move with a deck of cards for example
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for years before i'm ready to really include it in my performance and the idea is to make the moves
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so smooth and so subtle that they become invisible to the audience not only wouldn't they be able to
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see them but they wouldn't even be able to sense them or detect or be able to to realize that there's
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any sort of tension in my hands really that's what the human eye responds to is tension right we if
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you see something tense up then you think oh there must be something going on there i have to pay
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attention so really what i'm trying to do with my magic is perfect the moves refine them to such a
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degree that they really kind of disappear from your suspicion so practice for me is something that's fun
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i think that uh that practice should be an enjoyable experience it you know of course it could be
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grueling and at the end of the day you might be sweaty but that procedure of pushing yourself to get
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better and better should be something that's enjoyable if you don't enjoy the craft maybe
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trying something else might be a better use of your time if you don't enjoy the hard work that you have
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to put into something in order to enjoy the spoils then maybe that craft might not be the one for you
00:24:28.140
so what i like to do is i just practice an isolation sometimes i'll i'll practice something with my eyes
00:24:34.700
closed after i've perfected the slight i'll practice it without looking another times i'll practice it
00:24:40.500
without speaking so kind of isolating the different skills rather than performing the move with my
00:24:46.180
patter which is the language that magicians use to back up the trick sometimes i'll just perform it in
00:24:51.860
silence and just go through the entire routine which could be like you know an eight minute performance
00:24:55.720
silently almost like a silent movie sometimes i'll just put the props away and do it without
00:25:00.920
any emotion i'll just do it in my head or i'll just say the words aloud and then i'm focusing on the
00:25:07.360
language so most importantly though i think is what i call pp and pp is people's practice or people
00:25:16.340
practice when you perform in front of people that's when you really can understand what all of this
00:25:23.300
means and how it will play out in the real world so you know performing in front of a mirror or in front
00:25:28.920
of a video camera is great and it's a necessity before you perform in front of an audience but you never
00:25:35.460
really learn until you perform in front of living breathing people and you know i'll be honest like
00:25:42.660
there's been times where i thought a trick would go really well by practicing and then i get in front
00:25:47.060
of people and they can see through it instantly and i'm like what did i do wrong what did i do wrong and
00:25:52.380
the fact is i just only practiced it in isolation i didn't get it in front of real people
00:25:56.500
and you know you learn by listening to the audience i remember one time david copperfield came to my show
00:26:02.840
at the waldorf astoria where i started and copperfield and i spent time about two hours
00:26:08.340
afterwards and he said to me you can't write a show like that what you just put on was a show that
00:26:14.720
was responding to the audience and you've listened to the audience for so many years that you learn what
00:26:21.880
works and you learn what doesn't work and he was right i've never actually written a script for the
00:26:27.260
show and now i've transcribed the show but i never wrote sat down and wrote every word out
00:26:31.940
but i listened to the audience and i listened to what they responded to and therefore it became
00:26:38.520
more of a success when you're doing this people practice when you first start out like let's say
00:26:44.200
you're doing a new trick you're not going to your main event show the chamber show are you going to
00:26:49.320
maybe like just random people with low stakes to do that that's that's one way to do it that's one
00:26:54.260
way to do it you know um yeah i have a the challenge that i have right now is you know i have an
00:26:59.100
audience that expects something they expect nothing but excellence right if they're paying
00:27:03.780
top broadway money to come to see my show which it is you know there was a time when we were
00:27:09.640
charging 750 per ticket to the show now we've lowered it back down to a more reasonable range of
00:27:15.740
between 125 and 350 per ticket so we're talking you know still a significant investment you're not
00:27:21.540
expecting to see someone try things out for the first time right this shouldn't be the venue the
00:27:26.280
playground where he's trying out his experimental work so i do need to have a place to perform and
00:27:32.660
try out these things and that could be as simple as trying out a magic trick for my my family or it
00:27:38.820
could be trying out some magic for my dry cleaner at the dry cleaning shop or it could be you know
00:27:43.520
just even not even performing the trick but just telling people about it and sometimes by telling
00:27:49.220
people about it then it actually helps to find what people find intriguing about it without even
00:27:54.500
performing the trick so i know i've i've experienced this i'm friends with david blaine and i remember
00:27:59.840
when david blaine would talk about uh you know his upcoming stunt he would tell people about it and tell
00:28:05.420
people about it and he would see what people were excited by so if he's saying like i'm going to stand
00:28:09.940
on top of a pillar people go okay i'm gonna stand on top of a pillar for 72 hours people go oh really
00:28:15.440
yeah there's not going to be anything there for me to to hold on to and if the wind comes i can just be
00:28:21.020
blown off the top of this pillar and then he sees the audience go oh and you see by learning what
00:28:27.760
makes the audience go oh you know you don't even have to be performing it you could just be telling
00:28:32.400
the story of something and by telling the story of something before you actually do it in front of the
00:28:37.620
target audience you learn in advance what's intriguing to other people and i imagine you know
00:28:42.960
you talk about how regular people can apply this if you are given a presentation you just want to
00:28:46.680
practice that over and over again and then do it in front of people too do in front of family members
00:28:51.600
low stakes another thing i thought of as i was reading that section on how non-magicians could
00:28:57.900
practice in front of people with low stakes let's say you want to get better at public speaking
00:29:02.660
toastmasters we had a guest on the show wrote a book about toastmasters great place to go everyone's
00:29:08.340
there to get better and give you feedback there's no stakes involved but he found that actually doing
00:29:13.740
the public speaking that's how he got better at it so you can do the same thing as a regular person
00:29:18.460
that a magician does correct correct you get good at something by doing it i mean it's as simple as
00:29:22.240
that there's no real substitute for what pen gillette often calls flight time on stage you know as a
00:29:29.540
pilot you get your pilot's license by the number of hours you've flown and the same thing with skydiving
00:29:35.220
right you know by the number of jumps you've done so it's the same thing on stage the more that
00:29:40.480
you're on stage the more you're actually paying yourself to become a better performer all right so
00:29:45.700
the final maxim we just mentioned it a while back ago is be prepared so as a magician what does this
00:29:50.120
look like well you know when i walk into any room the first thing i start to do is i look around and
00:29:56.540
see what's there and i'm a magician so i you know i should be able to do magic with anything so i look
00:30:02.440
around and i see oh here's a salt shaker over there there's a there's a piece of newspaper over here
00:30:07.540
this person's wearing a diamond ring that woman has earrings on this guy's got a a submariner watch
00:30:13.020
and i'm thinking like what can i do with any of those objects and i have a kind of a mental rolodex
00:30:18.480
that i go through and i think okay i know tricks with a watch i know tricks with this salt shaker i
00:30:23.700
know tricks with the newspaper and now i'm starting to formulate things in advance so that when it comes
00:30:28.820
down to the time of performance which may be half an hour from now i'm never caught unaware and that's
00:30:38.200
the beauty of it is that you're kind of i'm a boy scout i was actually an eagle scout when i was younger
00:30:42.520
in troop 174 from yorktown heights new york and so you know the the slogan of the boy scouts is to be
00:30:49.240
prepared and i really think that's key to being a magician having months maybe even years of planning
00:30:56.860
in advance before the audience even knows that there is a performance being given michael weber
00:31:02.720
well-known magician says that you have to be so far ahead of the game that the audience doesn't even
00:31:07.680
know there's a game being played yet and i really love that i think that you have to really just be
00:31:12.160
thinking several steps ahead and what it boils down to is just knowing your audience like when i go into
00:31:18.940
an audience when i'm performing for people i like to know what kind of a crowd this is so maybe in
00:31:25.220
advance i might just look at the sales list for the day and say okay where are these people coming
00:31:29.380
from okay we have people coming from california we have people coming from from france we have people
00:31:34.460
who are visiting from china we've got people who are visiting from the tri-state area it helps me to
00:31:39.180
know the audience in advance and i like to call that the get to know you technique it's just really
00:31:44.400
like you know having a little bit of rapport before the audience realizes that there's a need to have a
00:31:48.780
rapport and that preparation will help you out even before you arrive so you have a chapter that's all
00:31:55.100
about building up conviction and confidence in yourself why is that important for you as a magician
00:32:00.360
in order to win the crowd well i think about it people want to be around people who are confident and who
00:32:08.080
are almost a larger than life i think that it's more interesting to be around people who are sure of
00:32:15.160
themselves right i mean when you walk into any sort of an event or if you're going to be giving a
00:32:20.200
presentation again we don't want someone who is a self-proclaimed failure to be giving us advice
00:32:25.640
we want someone who's going to be you know rather accomplished giving us advice because maybe we might
00:32:31.280
learn something from them you're always more interested in people who are bringing something
00:32:35.440
to the table that we don't personally already have so that's one of the beauties of being a magician
00:32:40.640
is that you know people aren't exposed to magic every day so when they come across someone who's
00:32:46.100
a magician and this person appears to be a good magician then they're probably going to be excited
00:32:52.460
to be with you and that's really what it is it's kind of building up the excitement of being in your
00:32:58.640
presence and you know again you don't want to make it like you're fishing for their their
00:33:03.520
approbation or you want to make it so that they just feel excited to be around you because you seem
00:33:07.760
like a fun person or you seem like an intelligent person or you seem like someone who brings something
00:33:12.060
to their life that they don't already have and how do you develop that confidence and conviction
00:33:17.220
once again it boils down to being sure in your work you know thinking that your own work is important
00:33:23.060
i'll put it this way you know actually there's a great story i'm gonna i'm gonna tell you this
00:33:26.960
story that's it's it's in the book so i'll read it to you uh the way i wrote it it's actually
00:33:30.500
pretty concise so there are three bricklayers and someone asked the three laborers what are you
00:33:36.780
doing and the first bricklayer says i'm laying brick the second bricklayer says i'm making ten
00:33:43.200
dollars an hour but the third bricklayer says me i'm building the world's greatest cathedral
00:33:49.080
and i really love the attitude of that third bricklayer because he knows that his work is
00:33:54.900
important to himself so you know being a magician is not on the highest list of people's prestigious
00:34:02.100
occupations you know i remember going through customs in london one time i was arriving for a
00:34:07.620
performance and the customs agent said to me after looking at my passport what do you do for a living
00:34:12.520
and it said magician and he laughed at me and he pointed at my ski cap and he said what are you going
00:34:16.680
to pull a rabbit out of your ski cap come on what's your real job and i had to tell him i'm really a
00:34:22.040
magician but i'm proud of that and being proud of your work thinking that your work is important
00:34:27.080
thinking that you do a first-rate job that's important you know you can say to yourself even
00:34:31.820
there's like a mantra you can say i am important i perform my work with dignity i do a first-rate job
00:34:37.480
every day and you know it's important to think that your work is important and i whether you're a banker
00:34:43.160
whether you're a salesperson whether you're a performer like me or anything you do you never say i'm
00:34:49.160
just a blank i'm just a clerk i'm just an analyst you know basically you have to put a top hat on
00:34:57.000
your head mentally and think i'm a magician not a literal magician but i do things in a magical way
00:35:03.820
i do things with power i do things with confidence and by telling yourself that you kind of make yourself
00:35:09.080
into a little bit of a celebrity and you know no one wants to walk around thinking like oh i'm an
00:35:14.240
a-list celebrity if you're not but if you think of yourself as someone with power and ability and
00:35:19.940
and maybe even a sense of beauty and and it just builds your own confidence you could do that by
00:35:25.340
dressing a certain way you could do that by speaking with uh you know by puffing up your chest
00:35:29.460
and you know it makes you just feel a little bit more confident and then you'll see the response of
00:35:34.960
people and when people respond that way it kind of is a feedback loop okay so again you kind of do uh
00:35:41.340
you have to maybe suggest yourself don't state to yourself suggest yourself that you are you are
00:35:47.580
confident right so dress the way and act the way exactly you talk about in the book like move like
00:35:52.320
deliberately and with conciseness that can also help bolster your confidence i agree i remember one
00:35:57.360
time i had a uh i had a superintendent in my building in new york city one of my early my first
00:36:03.580
apartments and this guy really did not know what he was doing he was a kind of a bumbling super
00:36:08.740
meaning that he didn't really know how to screw a screw into the into the wall and you know if he
00:36:13.820
was reaching for his screwdriver in the toolkit he didn't even know where it was he had to dig around
00:36:18.000
and find basic tools and then he didn't know where to you know did i have a a phillips head
00:36:23.620
screwdriver or a flathead screw he really was just clueless and i realized i can't trust this man
00:36:29.740
to help me with fixing my sink because it's not going to hold we later on that guy got fired uh not
00:36:36.960
surprise and then they hired a new super and this super was really on top of things so when he
00:36:42.980
reached for the screwdriver it was where he expected it to be and when he was uh putting together the
00:36:48.600
cabinet that i needed him to help me fix you know it went together one two three snip any snap and it
00:36:54.600
had to do with the fact that he was confident and he acted deliberately he knew where things were and
00:36:59.660
it gave me a sense of confidence as you know a resident is in his building so when i'm performing my
00:37:05.520
shows i like to have things always in the same place so if i reach i don't even need to look where
00:37:11.400
my hand is moving i know that an object is where it is because it's always there and i have the luxury
00:37:17.520
of always performing of course in the same venue so you know if i put something down it's going to
00:37:22.640
always be in the same spot i don't have to go fumbling for it or looking for it so the audience sees
00:37:27.320
that i'm a confident person because there's no hiccups i just reach for something it's always there
00:37:33.160
i'm able to do what i do with an intent and what i also like to do and i mentioned this also in the
00:37:38.300
book is to speak to myself is this how an important person would say this or is this how a powerful
00:37:48.080
person would act would my boss act this way would my customer act this way and would a successful
00:37:55.120
person argue over this or not and so by mentally framing these things in your head and then adjusting
00:38:02.460
the way that you speak or presented you're actually leading yourself into a successful
00:38:07.060
path so one of my favorite chapters in the book was all about how to command a room and this is useful
00:38:14.680
advice for someone who's presenting in front of an audience giving a pitch at a business meeting or
00:38:20.940
giving a public speech or i i think it also applied just in everyday social interactions and so this idea
00:38:26.280
of commanding the room the first step you say you have to do as a magician is you have to own the stage
00:38:31.980
as a magician how do you own the stage so that you can command the room what i like to do is first i
00:38:38.620
like to always arrive at the venue early and tread the boards the boards meaning the stage right that's
00:38:46.280
the actor's vernacular for walking onto a stage so i like to walk on the stage and just get the feel
00:38:52.760
for what the space is like how deep is the room how wide is this space do i need to step up steps
00:38:59.920
before i walk onto the stage will there be a backstage area is there a green room i just need
00:39:05.720
to know all about the parameters that i'll be performing in first so that there's no surprises
00:39:11.480
like that's really one of the key things i think about being a pro is reducing the number of surprises
00:39:17.260
in your presentations so that by the time you actually get up there in front of an audience
00:39:22.680
you're able to focus on the people and the interaction and the give and take with your
00:39:28.260
audience as opposed to is this glass of water going to tip over if i move my arm out or does
00:39:33.040
the stage have like a squeaky floor am i going to walk too far towards the audience and possibly fall
00:39:37.440
off stage knowing all these things in advance just reduces the number of variables so that when you get
00:39:43.080
up there you're not going to really be worried too much i think that's really good so i think if you're
00:39:47.840
giving a public speech i think that's useful advice to get up there early know what the stage looks like
00:39:53.320
make sure you know where the podium is going to be and you can even if you want to own the stage you
00:39:57.360
can probably maybe move things around right so i don't like this let's move this around that can help
00:40:02.040
instill some more confidence in you in yourself i agree one way that you can do this even in your own
00:40:08.280
life when you're just sitting at a table let's say you're having a business meeting or business talk at a
00:40:13.080
restaurant so i like to think of the interaction as kind of like a control of the real estate of
00:40:18.640
that table and people don't often think about this but you can move things around on tables that you
00:40:24.220
have more space you can move the glass out of the way you can move the flower vase out of the way you
00:40:29.520
can move the salt shaker out of the way you can move the plates and stack them up you can move the
00:40:33.900
forks so that you have more room and even just subtle things like this show that you're owning your
00:40:39.760
environment so again these are not overt things you don't say like look i'm going to take over
00:40:44.700
this table therefore i own this conversation it's not that overt it never is you know a lot of what
00:40:50.860
being a magician is is about making these implications of power and the implication of power
00:40:57.160
then kind of gives a little bit of a hint or a clue for someone to respond to you just that little
00:41:02.660
bit differently so i do this oftentimes you know i'll make the space mine and by making the space mine
00:41:09.420
i just feel like there's less that's going to impede me from moving forward in the way i planned
00:41:15.160
so i think that's a little tiny tip that you can try it doesn't cost you anything right when you're
00:41:20.620
at a restaurant you know just try that even when you're out with on a date or you're with your
00:41:24.220
family it doesn't take any extra effort but you might just feel a little different and a little
00:41:28.280
more powerful because you've done something to create your own space now when i walk on stage you
00:41:34.300
asked about how do you command the room i have ways of walking in that i use and i've learned this
00:41:39.840
again from my teacher juan tamariz who's a teacher not only to me but to thousands of magicians around
00:41:45.240
the world but has fortunately become a personal friend so tamariz taught this great technique when
00:41:51.140
you walk on stage to fan the room with your eyes now what does that mean so usually when you walk on
00:41:57.480
you're not walking on from the back of the auditorium or back of the audience towards the front
00:42:00.880
you're walking on from the side right you have to let's say the audience is in front of you
00:42:04.220
you're walking on to stage from either left stage for stage left or stage right and so let's say
00:42:09.180
you're walking on from stage right so you're walking on up maybe a few steps or maybe just you know onto
00:42:15.280
the stage and the audience will see your profile if you're looking at stage left they'll only see your
00:42:23.240
profile but wouldn't it be great if every person can see the front of your face a full frontal view
00:42:29.220
to give your smile a chance to shine well the way that you do that is when you're walking on stage
00:42:36.140
you start looking at the audience that's furthest to your left if you're starting from the right
00:42:40.720
and then as you get to the center stage you fan your face meaning you turn your head
00:42:46.280
all the way towards the area where you walked on so you're giving the entire almost 180 degree
00:42:52.880
circle or half circle of your face to the entire audience and they're now able to see you and
00:43:00.160
experience you with your smile and your light in your eyes rather than just your profile and it just
00:43:05.820
gives you a more of a connection right away there's an interesting thing i didn't write about in this
00:43:10.380
book but i've learned since is if you watch a mickey mouse cartoon like anything for you know
00:43:15.920
walt disney you know animation you'll see that mickey mouse's ears are always full circles or often
00:43:23.980
full circles i'm sure there's exemptions to this but oftentimes what happens even if he turns his
00:43:29.000
head left or turns his head right you'll still see these full circles of his ears because that's the
00:43:33.340
iconic mickey mouse pose and face and image and icon that we've become familiar with so you know
00:43:39.740
it's in a similar way imagine if you're able to show your face to every audience every part of the
00:43:44.060
audience no matter where they're seated in the left right middle back center when you walk on that's
00:43:49.880
how you do that by fanning the room well another tip that i liked in there about walking on to the
00:43:55.440
stage is that you don't start from a dead stop you actually start walking when you're off stage so that
00:44:01.680
when you hit on stage it looks more like you're floating and not sort of getting started and that it
00:44:07.440
just adds some dynamism to your presence right so one of the things i like to call it is the invisible
00:44:12.680
steps so so again if let's say that you're walking on stage from behind a curtain rather than just
00:44:18.040
standing still and then walking on which means that you're kind of ramping up to your full speed and
00:44:24.180
your full kind of energy take a couple of steps back from the curtain and start the advancement onto
00:44:31.640
stage from several feet away from the edge of the stage so by the time that you hit the curtain and
00:44:37.160
you've broken the curtain line now the audience sees you coming out in a powerful and energetic way
00:44:42.660
now i learned this the hard way from being on the david letterman show i was a guest on letterman
00:44:47.400
when he had close-up magic week and if you haven't seen my performance of that on youtube you should
00:44:51.960
check it out it was a really great experience but i remember standing backstage i was kind of
00:44:56.720
petrified because this is you know the ed sullivan theater i'm backstage this is where the beatles
00:45:01.540
performed i mean come on i was you know pretty intimidated and biff henderson who is the stage
00:45:08.140
manager he shoved my shoulder when it was time for me to walk on so i heard letterman say ladies and
00:45:14.200
gentlemen please welcome steve cohen and then biff henderson shoves me and my first step onto the
00:45:20.300
stage was a stumble and i stumbled on and then kind of got my pace and kept on walking to center stage
00:45:26.400
so why am i telling you this it looked stupid and i mean maybe it didn't really feel that or didn't
00:45:32.100
look that bad to the viewer at home but when i look at it i was like man i did not have control
00:45:37.000
over that entrance someone else controlled the entrance for me and that's not how i want to walk
00:45:41.880
on stage so now i have this solid rule that by the time they see me break into the spotlight i'm
00:45:49.500
walking in in full energy capacity and i think that's done by taking a few steps off stage before
00:45:56.080
entering on stage so in a magic show there's the trick itself right and that's the technique is
00:46:01.480
important but an important part to make the trick work is the patter like the words you're using while
00:46:06.320
you're doing the trick because it's going to help direct people's attention where you want it to be
00:46:10.280
and it also just makes it more engaging in the book you give some specific things that you do when
00:46:14.900
you're writing your patter your script to be persuaded so i like some of these things were
00:46:19.860
interesting like one is you used what's called layered commands so instead of saying to someone
00:46:25.720
here hold this card uh you'll say stand up and hold this card there's two commands there stand up
00:46:32.720
and hold this card what is it about putting two commands that helps you be more persuasive as a
00:46:37.020
magician and people think that patter is just you know the banter the idle language that magicians
00:46:43.500
use to kind of distract you from what's really happening but the fact is it's all serving the end
00:46:50.620
purpose of a successful demonstration of magic is that the language has to support the magic
00:46:56.560
the handling and the handling has to support the language they have to really coexist in like kind
00:47:02.180
of a symbiosis so there's no magic words like alakazam or hocus pocus or abracadabra that will
00:47:09.640
really create magic but there are patterns of language that you can use even if you're not a magician
00:47:15.920
to kind of create a magical outcome so this concept of a layered command which is basically
00:47:22.980
a command the word and and another command it makes it harder for people to say no to either
00:47:28.540
one of those two commands so for example if i were to say to you stand up it's easy for you to resist
00:47:33.800
and say well no why and if i were to say here hold the end of this rope the person says well why what
00:47:40.520
am i going to what do you want me to do they can resist it but if i say stand up and hold the end of
00:47:44.880
this rope people will not really deny either of those they'll simply stand up and hold the rope
00:47:50.180
and it's kind of uncanny it's something you should really give a try to i mean you can try it again
00:47:55.040
not just if you're a magician because most people listening to this aren't magicians but you could
00:47:59.240
try it let's say with your kid you know if you could say you know take out the garbage and close the
00:48:03.640
door when you go out and so take out the garbage they might say no to close the door behind you when
00:48:08.700
they go out they might say no to but take out the garbage and close the door it's like okay
00:48:13.600
there's two commands it's almost short circuits the ability to say no on you know in the office
00:48:20.100
you know finish this project and let me know when you're done they're not going to not finish the
00:48:24.360
project they're not going to not let you know when you're done because you've given them two
00:48:27.240
commands you know come over here and give me a kiss by the way don't use that at the office
00:48:31.700
you're on a date come over here and give me a kiss you know these are small little things you
00:48:36.080
can try now does it work every time no but will it work yes and you know it's actually fun to try
00:48:44.840
these layered commands and see what works for you nothing is an exact science but it could work and
00:48:53.360
when it does work it actually you can see if you can make it work again because you know what works
00:48:58.100
for you is not going to work for me and vice versa so you give these these layered commands it'll give
00:49:03.900
you the feeling of being an authority figure it helps you appear stronger and yeah i think that's
00:49:09.120
a really fun one to try now another magic word so to speak which i might recommend your listeners use
00:49:15.080
if you want to give this try yourself uh brett it might be fun is to use what i call the trailing
00:49:20.060
or and i use this all the time in my work and anyone could use this it's not just limited to magicians
00:49:26.560
i say would you like to shuffle the deck or and then it's just dot dot dot now the answer at that
00:49:34.200
point would likely be no so i say would you like to shuffle the deck of cards or and the reason is
00:49:42.320
because in people's heads they're finishing the sentence the last word would be not right so would
00:49:48.120
you like to shuffle the deck or not but since i never say the word not they say out loud no so that's
00:49:56.540
where it starts to become an interesting thing would you mind if i eat the last piece of pizza or
00:50:00.920
and people say no go ahead you know will there be a problem with that or
00:50:06.760
and the people would say no no no there's no problem do you mind if i leave a little early or
00:50:13.080
you see people that say sure you know it just feels like the natural ending to the sentence
00:50:18.700
not and since people are saying it in their own head they just will say no now if you shrug your
00:50:24.260
shoulders a little bit and kind of like you know shake your head no as you're saying it
00:50:27.360
it also kind of gives them more of an incentive to respond no and it just try this i'm telling you
00:50:34.640
it's a it's a fun project to try on your own you could just drop it in today to your conversation
00:50:39.640
and see if it actually works in your favor well steve this has been a great conversation where can
00:50:45.220
people go to learn more about your work well let me tell you a little secret
00:50:49.480
oh that's another go to that's another chambermagic.com that's that's one of my other magic
00:50:55.240
words the moment you say let me tell you a little secret people will lean in they're going to now
00:50:59.920
want to know what your secret is so even if you're not a magician again like you everyone's got a
00:51:05.060
secret right we all have secrets that we don't want people to know to see you know so so if you
00:51:10.120
say to someone let me tell you a little secret i really shouldn't tell you this but promise me you
00:51:13.680
won't tell this to anyone but you can find more about me at chambermagic.com right so now people
00:51:19.460
are like oh wow this is something that you know we weren't supposed to hear we weren't supposed to
00:51:22.660
know about you know when people say let me tell you a secret it means pay attention so i like to use
00:51:28.740
that expression a lot by the way the show runs every weekend at the lote new york palace hotel which is a
00:51:35.140
really grand hotel in the middle of new york city the show runs 250 live performances every year so i'm
00:51:42.040
always there uh every friday and every saturday and it's a really fun place if you do come to the
00:51:47.420
show please don't hesitate to walk up and tap me on the shoulder and say that you heard about it from
00:51:52.660
this conversation i love to meet people before during and after the show and as you can see i'm
00:51:57.740
yeah i try to be as personable and as as welcoming as i can to anyone who comes so please if you do come
00:52:03.960
let me know that you heard about it from this and maybe they can uh try to put a quarter in your
00:52:07.700
pocket too while they're absolutely that's the thing definitely drop a quarter in my pocket i will
00:52:11.560
act surprised well steve cohen thanks for your time it's been a pleasure my pleasure thanks for
00:52:16.240
inviting me my guest it was steve cohen he's the author of the book win the crowd it's available
00:52:20.880
on amazon.com you can find more information about his work at his website chambermagic.com
00:52:25.460
also check out our show notes at aom.is slash win the crowd where you find links to resources
00:52:31.260
well that wraps up another edition of the aom podcast make sure to check out our website at
00:52:42.300
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00:52:45.920
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00:53:12.460
for the continued support until next time's brett mckay reminding you to not listen that way on podcast