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Speaker 1: I don't do this much now, but again, if in

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Speaker 1: doubt experiment with things was going actually getting out a

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Speaker 1: little stack of dollar coins, actually putting them on the

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Speaker 1: table and going, I'll give you a dollar for every

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Speaker 1: criticism you can make about the show, every bad thing

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Speaker 1: you can think of in any way on any level.

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Speaker 1: I just start going just as sort of more as

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Speaker 1: an object listen to kind of make the point that

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Speaker 1: I am willing to pay for negative feedback, like that's

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Speaker 1: how much I actually want the constructive criticism.

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Speaker 2: Welcome to How I Work, a show about the tactics

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Speaker 2: used by leading innovators to get so much out of

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Speaker 2: their day. I'm your host, doctor amttha Imbach. I'm an

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Speaker 2: organizational psychologist, the founder of Innovation Consultancy Inventing, and I'm

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Speaker 2: obsessed with finding ways to optimize my workday. My guest

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Speaker 2: today is Simon Coronel. Simon was originally an IT consultant

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Speaker 2: working at Accenture in Melbourne, but he quit his day job,

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Speaker 2: so to speak, several years ago to become a full

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Speaker 2: time magician. Simon is now based in la He's the

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Speaker 2: winner of more than a dozen international awards, including two

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Speaker 2: separate prizes at the FISM World Championships of Magic and Illusion, which,

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Speaker 2: in case you're wondering, is like the Olympics of Magic,

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Speaker 2: and has appeared on Penn and Teller's TV show Full Ass,

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Speaker 2: where he did in fact manage to full Penn and

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Speaker 2: tell a. Simon is also one of the few Australians

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Speaker 2: to be regularly invited to perform at the world famous

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Speaker 2: Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood. Now, I've known Simon

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Speaker 2: for over a decade, and we actually met because my

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Speaker 2: parents saw him perform at a magic show and were

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Speaker 2: so impressed with his performance they decided to get his

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Speaker 2: email address after the show and suggests that we meet

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Speaker 2: up because we both studied psychology, I know, slightly random. Anyway,

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Speaker 2: we have been friends ever since, so thanks mom and dad. Now,

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Speaker 2: if you're an office worker, you might perhaps be thinking

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Speaker 2: what on earth can I learn from a magician? Well,

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Speaker 2: I actually think a whole lot. Simon is incredibly eloquent

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Speaker 2: and thoughtful about how he thinks about his profession, and

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Speaker 2: we cover a bunch of different topics in this interview,

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Speaker 2: ranging from how he designs magic tricks, thinking about you know,

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Speaker 2: the customer at the heart of it, through to how

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Speaker 2: to learn to actually be a magician, and we even

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Speaker 2: talk about some very novel strategies Simon has used to

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Speaker 2: solicit feedback, particularly negative feedback, including paying people to criticize

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Speaker 2: his shows. So on that note, over to Simon to

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Speaker 2: hear about how he works. Simon, Welcome to the show.

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Speaker 3: Pleasure to be here.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So I want to start by going back I

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Speaker 2: think five years to when you were working at Accentsia.

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Speaker 2: It was what were you doing at Accentsia?

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Speaker 1: It was actually about ten it was eleven years now,

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Speaker 1: no celebrate the anniversary of a year of exiting and

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Speaker 1: leaping into full time show business.

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Speaker 2: Oh my god, So tell me what were you doing?

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Speaker 1: So? I was a business analyst slash business consultant, working

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Speaker 1: mostly in the IT strategy division. So big companies need

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Speaker 1: to work out what to do with their IT budget,

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Speaker 1: how to structure their departments, what products to work on,

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Speaker 1: et cetera, et cetera, and I would do various projects

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Speaker 1: as parts of teams to help them with whatever the

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Speaker 1: actual change management thing they needed to do was.

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Speaker 2: Okay, that sounds very serious and complix it was. Yes,

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Speaker 2: it took you a while to build up the courage

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Speaker 2: to quit your day job and be a full time magician.

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Speaker 2: Can you tell me, like, what was that process? How

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Speaker 2: did you get to the point where you jumped ship?

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Speaker 1: It all eventually came down because it was originally straight

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Speaker 1: out of university. I spent a year sort of goofing around,

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Speaker 1: sort of taking various short term it contract things, and

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Speaker 1: didn't without really knowing what the heck I was doing.

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Speaker 1: Took the job and then planned.

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Speaker 3: To give it a couple of years. I'll give it

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Speaker 3: a couple of years.

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Speaker 1: Ended up staying there for five because I didn't really

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Speaker 1: know again, out of fear, out of nervousness, out of

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Speaker 1: not knowing if I could do something else. Eventually it

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Speaker 1: came down to eventually boil down to a simple equation

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Speaker 1: rather than pros and cons that you can do to

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Speaker 1: all the cows come. I realized Number one, if I

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Speaker 1: didn't jump ship and have a crack, I'd always regret

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Speaker 1: it to everyone's number one regret on their deathbed that

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Speaker 1: they didn't try the thing, whatever the thing was. So

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Speaker 1: I knew I had to or I'd live with regret

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Speaker 1: and wandering the rest of my life. Number Two, I

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Speaker 1: realized I was never going to feel ready there was

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Speaker 1: no amount of preparation that would actually have made me

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Speaker 1: feel ready. That was one of the big epiphanies. And consequently,

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Speaker 1: if I'm never going to feel ready, there's never the

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Speaker 1: right moment, and therefore the best moment is right now.

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Speaker 1: And that was that series of revelations. Was when I

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Speaker 1: started writing the resignation letter and planning the exit, I realized, yeah,

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Speaker 1: I'm never gonna feel ready.

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Speaker 3: I have to do it.

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Speaker 1: Well, shit, I guess I do it now. That's because

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Speaker 1: I'd already delayed longer than I should have. Really, I

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Speaker 1: should have left about a year and a half ago.

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Speaker 1: But hey, it worked out in the end.

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Speaker 2: Wow, that's that's amazing. That's a good set of revelations

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Speaker 2: to get to as well.

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Speaker 1: And they all cast and it was one of those things.

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Speaker 1: I mean, you know you're you're a psychologist. They'd been

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Speaker 1: my brain had been figuring that out for a long time,

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Speaker 1: and then finally they all just jumped into my conscious

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Speaker 1: mind rapid succession one afternoon, and I finally went, yep, yep,

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Speaker 1: it makes sense now, that's that's where it is.

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Speaker 2: And then you write the race with the Nation letter.

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Speaker 1: Yeah, I just realized, yeah, this is what It's like

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Speaker 1: that saying that the best time to start something is

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Speaker 1: ten years ago, the second best time is right now.

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Speaker 3: It's a really really good piece of wisdom.

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Speaker 2: It's great. I'm curious as to like, do you have

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Speaker 2: an annual planning process or something like that, because you

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Speaker 2: would have been all over that stuff at excentia, but like,

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Speaker 2: what is what does life look like? Do you have

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Speaker 2: any markers or rituals or rhythms as a full time magician.

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Speaker 1: Basically no, And it's one of the most difficult things

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Speaker 1: about it. It is it's a common question. So one

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Speaker 1: of the common questions is how because I live in

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Speaker 1: la now and the question how can you get back

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Speaker 1: to Australia. And the answer is there is no. There's

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Speaker 1: no trend. Every day, week, month and year is completely different.

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Speaker 1: And it is very challenging and unsettling to kind of

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Speaker 1: grapple with that, but exciting as well. It's pros and cons.

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Speaker 1: It's most people given for more excitement. I earned for

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Speaker 1: a bit less. I'm too rich in that department, and

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Speaker 1: I'm working on dialing it back a bit and getting

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Speaker 1: some more predictability in my schedule. And that depends on

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Speaker 1: there's so many different ways you can generate revenue in

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Speaker 1: this field, whether it's doing private events or corporate events

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Speaker 1: or cruise ship gigs, or making enturing a theater show

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Speaker 1: or running classes, and trying to work out a balance

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Speaker 1: of where the actual cash cows are versus what's predictable

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Speaker 1: versus not going to get too locked into something to

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Speaker 1: stay keep the flexibility. It's a very difficult juggling act.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so do you have goals, like, you know, like

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Speaker 2: at the beginning of the year when most people are

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Speaker 2: setting resolutions or career planning, like, how are you, I guess,

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Speaker 2: evaluating your progress and feeling that sense of momentum.

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Speaker 1: It's again, it's tricky. I've always been really bad with

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Speaker 1: goal setting. I know that's meant to be a very

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Speaker 1: productive thing. I've never found it useful personally because I

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Speaker 1: always some part of my brain deep down knows the

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Speaker 1: goals aren't real. They're just things I've made up. Whereas

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Speaker 1: the way that I find I get things done and

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Speaker 1: actually achieve things is when I commit to an externally

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Speaker 1: enforced deadline e g. Something like the Melbourne Magic Festival

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Speaker 1: or a competition or a show. Now someone else will

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Speaker 1: notice if I don't do a thing I haven't found.

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Speaker 1: I can make my own goals, but if I sign

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Speaker 1: up for doing a show at the ed Refringe Festival

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Speaker 1: from August the Knights or whatever, then mountains will be

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Speaker 1: moved to make that happen and that goal will get hit.

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Speaker 1: So they have to have some kind of external component

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Speaker 1: of judgment. For me personally, I found and I think

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Speaker 1: that's I think that's a weakness. I think my life

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Speaker 1: would be better if I were better at setting internal goals,

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Speaker 1: but I have not yet found a way to make

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Speaker 1: that stick.

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Speaker 2: Okay, So it's about the external goals. I hear that

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Speaker 2: quite a bit actually from people in creative endeavors. I

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Speaker 2: feel like a lot from writers. That's the thing that

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Speaker 2: motivates them to write a deadline. So I want to

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Speaker 2: go into the process of creating a show. So let's

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Speaker 2: say you know you have signed up to be doing

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Speaker 2: a show at a festival or at the Magic Castle

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Speaker 2: in la or something like that. Where do you start

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Speaker 2: with a show?

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Speaker 1: It varies hugely. There's no real one process. There are

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Speaker 1: lots of ways it comes about. I mean ways that's

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Speaker 1: happened in the past, eg. The Magic Castle, a show

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Speaker 1: magic wise, for me, is usually and for most people

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Speaker 1: just first you know how long your slot is. It

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Speaker 1: usually actually begins with the timeslot. At the Magic Castle,

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Speaker 1: for example, you're usually doing about an eighteen minute set,

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Speaker 1: minimum fifteen, maximum twenty, and that hugely changes the equation.

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Speaker 1: There's a lot. It's very different what you can do

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Speaker 1: in that time slot than say an hour shore or

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Speaker 1: a ninety minute show or whatever.

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Speaker 3: So you start with the.

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Speaker 1: Timeslot and then a lot of the most common ways

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Speaker 1: approaching it the way a band would prepare a set

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Speaker 1: of music, and it's just track after track, and you

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Speaker 1: work out the best things that will flow well and

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Speaker 1: have a bit of texture. You don't do things like

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Speaker 1: put two card tricks adjacent to each other unless they

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Speaker 1: thematically link, and you start to look at what have

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Speaker 1: you got, what's your repertoire that's good, what are the

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Speaker 1: best things, what are the things you think will play

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Speaker 1: well for that audience in that situation.

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Speaker 3: Kind of put them together and then look at.

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Speaker 1: It either on paper or in your head of go, okay,

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Speaker 1: how does that feel as a show? Does that flow well?

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Speaker 1: Does that structure well? And then just kind of refine

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Speaker 1: it from there. The other way is sort of the

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Speaker 1: more conceptual way. If you have a concept idea for

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Speaker 1: the show, you want people to experience a massive revelatory

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Speaker 1: twist at the end, So then you actually will structure

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Speaker 1: the whole show based on that ending, like a writer

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Speaker 1: starting with the ending and working backwards.

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Speaker 2: And when you're like zooming in on a specific trick,

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Speaker 2: I'm fascinated by what goes into creating a new trick,

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Speaker 2: Like where where I guess does that spark of inspiration

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Speaker 2: tend to come from.

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Speaker 1: There's one big dichotomy that I noticed that I actually

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Speaker 1: learned from engineering, in sort of software design and system design.

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Speaker 1: In magic, it often goes either top down or bottom up,

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Speaker 1: And in engineering that sort of beginning with the technology

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Speaker 1: or beginning with the user experience. Your experience is top down.

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Speaker 1: Technology is bottom up, and in magic, top down usually

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Speaker 1: goes man, wouldn't it be cool if I want to

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Speaker 1: turn water into wine? Make a whole biblical reference about it. Right,

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Speaker 1: that's a top down idea. It's a concept. And then

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Speaker 1: you try and work out a method, and you go

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Speaker 1: into all the magic repertoire and theory, and like magic

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Speaker 1: is just special effects engineering applied to much more difficult

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Speaker 1: live situations. That's in a nutshell where it is, and

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Speaker 1: you go, all right, how could we do that? What

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Speaker 1: are O options? What methods do we know? What methods

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Speaker 1: can we adapt? How can we use the underlying principles?

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Speaker 1: Whereas then bottom up is something like hmm, someone's discovered

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Speaker 1: a really clever way to make a cup look empty

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Speaker 1: when it's actually full, and it's just the methodological illusion thing.

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Speaker 1: And then you go upwards from that, going well, what

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Speaker 1: could that turn into as a performance piece? Is it

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Speaker 1: a coffee cup with coffee that isn't in it? Or

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Speaker 1: is it a cup of coins rather than liquid? And

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Speaker 1: what narrative or experience could you dress that up into?

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Speaker 1: And then that can turn into a whole piece. But

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Speaker 1: beginning with low level method I find both happen a

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Speaker 1: lot for me. I tend to go more bottom up

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Speaker 1: than top down with magic, but it's in no way

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Speaker 1: exclusive to that.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, so let's just say you're going bottom up. That's fascinating,

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Speaker 2: those two ways into a trick. Yeah, I had no idea,

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Speaker 2: but that makes complete sense. So let's just say you're

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Speaker 2: going bottom up and you found this great technology that

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Speaker 2: can give you this kind of effect. What then happens

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Speaker 2: to create this mind blowing experience for the audience.

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Speaker 3: It's I mean, it's like a lot of things.

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Speaker 1: It often will begin It will either be there'll be

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Speaker 1: that the whole flash of insight you suddenly have an idea,

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Speaker 1: or it can be an actual structured brainstorm and just

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Speaker 1: going all right, there's this really cool method that's really great,

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Speaker 1: and often it's very if possible, it's collaborative. Collaboration always

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Speaker 1: better than solo. You can do it solo, but get

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Speaker 1: a bunch of good brains on the problem is always better.

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Speaker 2: And do they need to be magicians or is it

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Speaker 2: best if they're not magicians?

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Speaker 3: It's a combination. Is great.

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Speaker 1: Magicians are better for a methadthodology because you have this

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Speaker 1: huge mental library of all the things you've studied and

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Speaker 1: researched over the years and decades. But their non magicians

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Speaker 1: are usually better because they are the target audience. They're

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Speaker 1: the people who fundamentally need to be captivated or impressed

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Speaker 1: or entertained by this, and they're the ones who can

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Speaker 1: judge whether it works both does it work magically as

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Speaker 1: in did it look amazing? Did that thing look impossible?

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Speaker 1: But also did the narrative work, Did the concept work?

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Speaker 1: Were they do they enjoy the experience? Do they understand

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Speaker 1: the experience? So getting magicians at the start are better

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Speaker 1: when you're trying to figure the method out, and then

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Speaker 1: once it's actually performable in some way, then you want

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Speaker 1: non magicians as the judges. It's they're the ones who matter.

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Speaker 2: And what sorts of things are you getting feedback on

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Speaker 2: from non magicians and what sort of input are you

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Speaker 2: looking for?

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Speaker 1: Well, this is the thing that I A big thing

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Speaker 1: that I personally am a proponent of. I have this

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Speaker 1: whole I have a website and a sort of a

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Speaker 1: short book that I made for the magical industry called

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Speaker 1: the Institute of Audience Studies, which is a set which

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Speaker 1: is a semi facetious, half silly, half serious title of

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Speaker 1: because one thing that isn't a big part of magic

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Speaker 1: culture is actually really asking the audience what did you

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Speaker 1: actually really think? And in magic it's almost it's considered

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Speaker 1: taboo to ask people if they think, if they know

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Speaker 1: how it was done, and the conventional bad wisdom on that,

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Speaker 1: the conventional not wisdom is I mean, there's a bit

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Speaker 1: of it. Don't ask a question you don't want to

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Speaker 1: hear the answer to So it's like if you ask

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Speaker 1: them how they think it was done and they figured out,

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Speaker 1: they'll tell you and then that ruins it. But to me,

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Speaker 1: if they have figured out how it's done, you need

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Speaker 1: to know that because you need to fix that and

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Speaker 1: make that better. So you have to risk the unpleasant

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Speaker 1: answer go into the valley of death to find the treasure.

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Speaker 1: So I have this whole set of systems about ways

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Speaker 1: to survey audience members both formally and informally verbally and

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Speaker 1: on questionnaires to really try and get inside what they're experiencing.

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Speaker 1: So you're asking them a first of all, did the

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Speaker 1: illusion work? Were you amazed? Did you experience a sense

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Speaker 1: of something that seemed impossible? And hence the wow factor is.

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Speaker 2: That like zeb Byner, is that yes, no, oh.

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Speaker 3: No, it's a sliding scale a degree.

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Speaker 1: It's absolutely a degree, and there's no real There are

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Speaker 1: a few kind of breakpoints that where you sort of

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Speaker 1: draw a line on that spectrum, and the biggest one

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Speaker 1: is just there's sort of this gets very blurry, but

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Speaker 1: the best case purely in terms of deceptiveness of the illusion. Right,

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Speaker 1: let's before we get to entertainment and comedy, and intrigue

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Speaker 1: and personal connection and rapport and all those things that

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Speaker 1: matter about a show.

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Speaker 3: Is best case is they have.

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Speaker 1: Absolutely no idea and it looked absolutely impossible. It's that

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Speaker 1: sense of what the hell just happened to physics and reality,

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Speaker 1: that's what you're really going for.

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Speaker 3: Ideally, a back of it.

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Speaker 1: From that is they can sort of maybe. The question

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Speaker 1: I always ask is, if you offered a million dollars,

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Speaker 1: if you can guess how it was done. This is

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Speaker 1: if someone goes, I've got no idea, no clue. Sometimes

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Speaker 1: they're being polite and you need to check for that

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Speaker 1: because they might think you just don't want to hear it.

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Speaker 1: I'll give you a million dollars if you can get

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Speaker 1: I'm not But if you offer a million dollars to guess,

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Speaker 1: and you have to take a guess. So sometimes they'll go, oh,

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Speaker 1: maybe there was a second card under the seed or something,

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Speaker 1: and you can tell that they're just floundering for something.

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Speaker 1: They don't actually seriously have that as a guess, but

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Speaker 1: they can.

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Speaker 3: Come up with something.

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Speaker 1: It's a little bit less amazed, right because now they've

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Speaker 1: got maybe a guess.

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Speaker 2: That's a great question.

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Speaker 1: I like that, And because It's a lot of it

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Speaker 1: is how to break through people's politeness, because people are

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Speaker 1: not used to people being good at taking feedback, let

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Speaker 1: alone being actively desiring the feedback. So I've come with

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Speaker 1: lots of unverbal techniques to kind of get through that.

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Speaker 2: So how else do you break through people's politeness?

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Speaker 1: One that I play with I don't do this much now,

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Speaker 1: but again, if in doubt experiment with things was going

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Speaker 1: get actually getting out a little stack of dollar coins,

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Speaker 1: actually putting them on the table and going, I'll give

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Speaker 1: you a dollar for every criticism you can make about

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Speaker 1: the show, every bad thing you can think of in

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Speaker 1: any way on any level. Just start going just as

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Speaker 1: sort of more as an object. Listen to kind of

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Speaker 1: the point that I am willing to pay for negative feedback,

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Speaker 1: like that's how much I actually want the constructive criticism

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Speaker 1: that's awesome, and things like that, But that over the years,

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Speaker 1: that question of okay for a million dollars if someone

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Speaker 1: offered you to try and guess the method, but the

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Speaker 1: and that kind of breaks through them realizing, oh, okay,

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Speaker 1: this person is okay with criticism, then you can ask

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Speaker 1: the things like anything else about the show that was weird?

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Speaker 1: Was anything distracting, was anything offensive, was doing anything not

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Speaker 1: make sense? And that's where I've got feedback, like things

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Speaker 1: how someone was distracted that my shoes weren't polished, And

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Speaker 1: that's the thing. Things like that mattered just as much

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Speaker 1: as the magic, because everything in the show is part

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Speaker 1: of the show. And it's the same in any business,

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Speaker 1: any product, everything is part of it. Your packaging is

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Speaker 1: part of the product, your delivery is part of the product.

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Speaker 1: You know, your demeanor is part of the product. Everything

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Speaker 1: is part of the overall experience the person has when

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Speaker 1: they engage with you or your business or your service

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Speaker 1: or whatever. All of it matters, not just the core thing.

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Speaker 2: How do you know when a trick is ready to perform?

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Speaker 3: You don't.

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Speaker 1: You kind of have to just eventually suck it and see,

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Speaker 1: bite the bullet, jump off the cliff.

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Speaker 3: You sort of get it.

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Speaker 1: You get a sense over time. That's a thing that

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Speaker 1: experience gives you that. And I'm usually much more willing

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Speaker 1: than most people in my industry to kind of take

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Speaker 1: a risk on something unplanned. I have this theory that

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Speaker 1: I find is useful for me for unlocking creativity and

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Speaker 1: risk taking is of all the lines.

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Speaker 3: If you could.

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Speaker 1: You can't, but for the sake of argument, boil down

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Speaker 1: the quality of a performance to a single linear scale,

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Speaker 1: and you can't. It's very multi dimensional. But just how

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Speaker 1: good was this experience for the audience? And again not

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Speaker 1: how good is the show or how goes the trick?

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Speaker 1: How good is the experience the audience had, because that's

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Speaker 1: what actually matters above everything, And at the top is

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Speaker 1: this is the best thing all of them have ever

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Speaker 1: seen in their entire lives. There's nothing birth of their

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Speaker 1: first child was not as good as this show, like

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Speaker 1: the best possible show you could have. And the bottom

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Speaker 1: is this was worse than genocide, like it's the worst show.

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Speaker 3: It was so bad.

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Speaker 1: So you have the extreme scale, and along that there

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Speaker 1: are these there are many thresholds on that scale, and

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Speaker 1: just below the best is it's the best thing for

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Speaker 1: nearly everyone, or it's the second best thing. And there's

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Speaker 1: an infinite number of lines, And the two lines I

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Speaker 1: think about the most personally, I aim at the one

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Speaker 1: where it's one of the best things they've ever seen

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Speaker 1: in their life in show bus or entertainment. I aim

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Speaker 1: at that, and so far I don't think I've ever

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Speaker 1: hit I might have come close to it for a

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Speaker 1: couple of people subjectively here and there, with a couple

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Speaker 1: of shows.

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Speaker 3: But I aim at that.

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Speaker 1: That's the standard I'm shooting for and striving for, and

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Speaker 1: I'll keep working hard until I can hit that, and

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Speaker 1: I probably never will. I think of it as an asymptote,

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Speaker 1: but that's where you aim. But I'm willing to take

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Speaker 1: risks and let it all hang out down to, but

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Speaker 1: not below the line where no one in the audience

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Speaker 1: felt like they wasted their time or their money. Now

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Speaker 1: that's a pretty low bar, but many shows do not

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Speaker 1: cross that bar. We've all seen shows that did not

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Speaker 1: cross that bar. Why this was not worth my twenty

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Speaker 1: bucks or my hour of my life. And if I

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Speaker 1: if I ever below that line, then my karma is

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Speaker 1: out of whack and I should feel bad and I

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Speaker 1: should beat myself up. But down to that line, I

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Speaker 1: willing to try things out and take risks and see

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Speaker 1: if an experiment with crazy things.

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Speaker 2: I like that. I really like the idea of putting

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Speaker 2: labels on like what is a like scale scale of

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Speaker 2: one to five, which normally quite dull, And if someone

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Speaker 2: picks four out of five year often I really know

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Speaker 2: what they mean. So I think that that's a really

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Speaker 2: helpful way of looking at things. And I'm reflecting on

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Speaker 2: it in my own working life, where I guess the

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Speaker 2: entertainment that I do is delivering keynote speeches all over

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Speaker 2: the place, and that's I find that that's that's quite

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Speaker 2: a helpful way of looking at and you know, and thinking,

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Speaker 2: oh will I will I test that? So back to

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Speaker 2: back to a trick. So obviously, well no, not obviously,

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Speaker 2: I mean to all tricks, I guess in your world

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Speaker 2: require some kind of dexterity.

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Speaker 3: No, no at all.

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Speaker 1: Services one of the things I got into magic as

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Speaker 1: an adult. I was eighteen, so technically an adult, but

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Speaker 1: adult brain, right, You've got an adult brain from eleven

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Speaker 1: or twelve in terms of intellectually to solve problems and

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Speaker 1: think about stuff. And I was, and so I can

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Speaker 1: remember what it was like to know nothing about magic,

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Speaker 1: and most magicians can't. Most got into it when they

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Speaker 1: were very, very young and have long forgotten what it

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Speaker 1: was actually like to not know. And I think I

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Speaker 1: was really lucky because the outsider perspective is so important

437
00:20:29,119 --> 00:20:31,520
Speaker 1: to again, just step back from the elephant and you

438
00:20:31,560 --> 00:20:33,480
Speaker 1: can see it's an elephant rather just feeling the trunk

439
00:20:33,520 --> 00:20:35,280
Speaker 1: and feeling the leg and thing hits a tree.

440
00:20:36,000 --> 00:20:36,919
Speaker 3: And one of the.

441
00:20:36,880 --> 00:20:39,960
Speaker 1: Things I learned is that nearly everything about magic as

442
00:20:40,000 --> 00:20:42,320
Speaker 1: an art form, as an industry, and all these things

443
00:20:42,400 --> 00:20:46,640
Speaker 1: is not just unintuitive but counterintuitive. Nearly everything about it

444
00:20:46,680 --> 00:20:49,640
Speaker 1: is almost the opposite of what you'd actually think. And

445
00:20:49,920 --> 00:20:51,879
Speaker 1: the other thing is it's so much broader and so

446
00:20:51,960 --> 00:20:55,000
Speaker 1: much deeper than anyone in a million years would ever guess. So,

447
00:20:55,040 --> 00:20:58,080
Speaker 1: for example, the dexterity factor, many ts absolutely require a

448
00:20:58,160 --> 00:21:01,240
Speaker 1: huge amount of dexterity, just there's many require none at all.

449
00:21:02,280 --> 00:21:06,000
Speaker 1: Some require the use of optical principles, others don't at all.

450
00:21:06,560 --> 00:21:08,720
Speaker 1: Some can be done by a beginner in with twenty

451
00:21:08,720 --> 00:21:11,800
Speaker 1: minutes of training, others take decades, and even then not

452
00:21:11,880 --> 00:21:14,639
Speaker 1: everyone can do them. Some are easy, some are hard.

453
00:21:15,320 --> 00:21:18,160
Speaker 1: None of them rely on speed, well, actually almost none. Again,

454
00:21:18,160 --> 00:21:20,320
Speaker 1: there's no statement you can make about magic that is

455
00:21:20,320 --> 00:21:25,000
Speaker 1: always true. There are so many. It's like theater or cinema.

456
00:21:25,040 --> 00:21:28,960
Speaker 1: There's so many other exceptions and weird categories and sub

457
00:21:29,000 --> 00:21:32,240
Speaker 1: categories and sub subcategories, and different approaches and different styles

458
00:21:32,280 --> 00:21:34,760
Speaker 1: and different ways to climb up that mountain of doing

459
00:21:34,800 --> 00:21:35,439
Speaker 1: something amazing.

460
00:21:35,560 --> 00:21:38,560
Speaker 2: So does that mean in any given show there might

461
00:21:38,600 --> 00:21:41,600
Speaker 2: be a trick that has taken literally years to learn

462
00:21:41,600 --> 00:21:44,520
Speaker 2: and rehearse and one that maybe has taken a few days.

463
00:21:44,560 --> 00:21:46,440
Speaker 1: Absolutely, I mean the show you saw me do the

464
00:21:46,520 --> 00:21:49,680
Speaker 1: other day had both of those things, right. There were

465
00:21:49,880 --> 00:21:52,439
Speaker 1: plenty of both in that show, things that have required

466
00:21:52,560 --> 00:21:54,520
Speaker 1: years of And even if we just look at the

467
00:21:54,520 --> 00:21:57,560
Speaker 1: dexterity factor, which is only one very narrow sliver of

468
00:21:57,600 --> 00:22:02,240
Speaker 1: what goes into actually making a magic show work, some things. Yeah,

469
00:22:02,520 --> 00:22:04,520
Speaker 1: that thing with rolling the coin over the fingers and

470
00:22:04,520 --> 00:22:05,720
Speaker 1: the ring and that whole display.

471
00:22:05,920 --> 00:22:08,159
Speaker 2: We describe what that was.

472
00:22:08,320 --> 00:22:10,720
Speaker 1: So a lot of people will have seen something like this.

473
00:22:10,840 --> 00:22:14,200
Speaker 1: It's what's called a flourish, a little juggling show offy

474
00:22:14,280 --> 00:22:17,000
Speaker 1: kind of technique where you balance a coin and basically

475
00:22:17,119 --> 00:22:19,040
Speaker 1: roll it across your knuckles. A lot of people do

476
00:22:19,040 --> 00:22:21,480
Speaker 1: it with poker chips in poker tournaments and things like that.

477
00:22:22,400 --> 00:22:24,280
Speaker 1: And there's another one that's done with a ring but

478
00:22:24,600 --> 00:22:26,960
Speaker 1: sort of rolled between the fingertips, so it sort of

479
00:22:27,000 --> 00:22:29,520
Speaker 1: moves from fingertip to fingertip in a nice, pretty little

480
00:22:29,800 --> 00:22:30,520
Speaker 1: flourishy thing.

481
00:22:30,880 --> 00:22:31,760
Speaker 3: And this routine I.

482
00:22:31,800 --> 00:22:34,000
Speaker 1: Put together that sort of just a it's really just

483
00:22:34,040 --> 00:22:37,200
Speaker 1: showing off with an entertaining presentation to it. But it's

484
00:22:37,240 --> 00:22:39,800
Speaker 1: interesting to just watch a person doing an impressive skill.

485
00:22:39,920 --> 00:22:42,399
Speaker 1: That's one of the many ways you can entertain the crowd.

486
00:22:43,359 --> 00:22:45,280
Speaker 1: And then I teach someone to do the first part

487
00:22:45,280 --> 00:22:48,480
Speaker 1: of one of them, partly to show that it is attainable.

488
00:22:48,840 --> 00:22:52,280
Speaker 1: These things are attainable with enough work, but also because

489
00:22:52,320 --> 00:22:54,840
Speaker 1: I find that breaking down the actual steps in it

490
00:22:54,920 --> 00:22:57,800
Speaker 1: lets people appreciate more deeply what they're actually seeing, because

491
00:22:57,800 --> 00:22:59,320
Speaker 1: now they're really they have a bit more of an

492
00:22:59,359 --> 00:23:00,720
Speaker 1: understanding what's going on.

493
00:23:00,960 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: Yeah, So with the like rolling the coin over your knuckles,

494
00:23:06,080 --> 00:23:09,800
Speaker 2: I think you said that it'd taken eight minute about.

495
00:23:09,520 --> 00:23:11,879
Speaker 1: Eight months from when I first learned it to when

496
00:23:11,920 --> 00:23:13,000
Speaker 1: I could do it competently.

497
00:23:13,119 --> 00:23:14,120
Speaker 2: Like how many hours a day?

498
00:23:15,520 --> 00:23:16,040
Speaker 3: Tough to know.

499
00:23:16,119 --> 00:23:17,960
Speaker 1: I've never measured the hours. That's one of the other

500
00:23:18,040 --> 00:23:21,320
Speaker 1: things people think of in music, or in acrobatics, or

501
00:23:21,320 --> 00:23:23,840
Speaker 1: in marshal or any skills, like, oh, the hours a

502
00:23:23,920 --> 00:23:26,200
Speaker 1: day you put in I've never found. I think that's

503
00:23:26,240 --> 00:23:29,040
Speaker 1: a model for mostly like violin and piano, like music teaching,

504
00:23:29,280 --> 00:23:33,359
Speaker 1: I've never counted the hours because the saying as the

505
00:23:33,440 --> 00:23:35,359
Speaker 1: saying in magic, it's not the hours, it's the minutes.

506
00:23:36,080 --> 00:23:39,359
Speaker 1: It's the minutes of practice, because it's very hard to

507
00:23:39,359 --> 00:23:44,040
Speaker 1: spend an hour actually practicing NonStop. But you can squeeze

508
00:23:44,040 --> 00:23:47,000
Speaker 1: in three minutes while waiting for the bus, or seven

509
00:23:47,000 --> 00:23:49,720
Speaker 1: minutes on the toilet, or thirty minutes while watching a

510
00:23:49,760 --> 00:23:52,560
Speaker 1: TV show. And that's most of the ways I've actually

511
00:23:52,560 --> 00:23:54,480
Speaker 1: practiced over the years. Is a few minutes here, a

512
00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,640
Speaker 1: few minutes there. That probably adds up to a couple

513
00:23:56,680 --> 00:23:59,640
Speaker 1: of hours a day, But it's never actually sit down

514
00:23:59,640 --> 00:24:02,439
Speaker 1: for an hour and crank through it, except if I'm

515
00:24:02,480 --> 00:24:04,639
Speaker 1: preparing for something very specific, if there's a show or

516
00:24:04,640 --> 00:24:07,080
Speaker 1: a competition coming up and I need to get a

517
00:24:07,080 --> 00:24:10,040
Speaker 1: certain skill, or it's at the point where i'm refining it,

518
00:24:10,080 --> 00:24:11,879
Speaker 1: then I'll kind of sit down with the video camera

519
00:24:12,000 --> 00:24:14,399
Speaker 1: and like really do it and grind it in. But

520
00:24:14,600 --> 00:24:17,240
Speaker 1: usually the kinds of things I've learned to do with

521
00:24:17,280 --> 00:24:19,400
Speaker 1: the ones I can practice here and there in passing

522
00:24:19,680 --> 00:24:22,119
Speaker 1: just bit by bit, and then over days and weeks

523
00:24:22,119 --> 00:24:23,560
Speaker 1: and months and years, that adds up.

524
00:24:24,040 --> 00:24:27,879
Speaker 2: Yeah, wow, that makes it seem more achievable. I guess

525
00:24:27,920 --> 00:24:30,080
Speaker 2: like knowing that I like that idea in terms of

526
00:24:30,119 --> 00:24:32,520
Speaker 2: thinking in minutes for rather than hours.

527
00:24:32,640 --> 00:24:34,560
Speaker 1: Yeah, completely, And that applies to a lot of things,

528
00:24:34,600 --> 00:24:36,719
Speaker 1: whether it's learning slide of hand skills or writing your

529
00:24:36,760 --> 00:24:41,400
Speaker 1: screenplay or programming your app or whatever, and doesn't always work.

530
00:24:41,440 --> 00:24:42,840
Speaker 1: Sometimes there are things you need to kind of get

531
00:24:42,920 --> 00:24:44,919
Speaker 1: set up and get in the zone for, but there

532
00:24:44,920 --> 00:24:46,440
Speaker 1: are plenty of things that you can just chip away

533
00:24:46,440 --> 00:24:49,159
Speaker 1: out a little bit. One step is more than zero steps.

534
00:24:49,720 --> 00:24:52,560
Speaker 2: So what does that look like then? For a trick

535
00:24:52,640 --> 00:24:57,280
Speaker 2: that requires a large amount of dexterity in a show

536
00:24:57,480 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 2: like what does your rehearsal schedule, you'll look.

537
00:25:01,000 --> 00:25:03,280
Speaker 1: Like yeah, well usually, And this is one of the

538
00:25:03,280 --> 00:25:05,359
Speaker 1: things where where magic tends to do or a certain

539
00:25:05,400 --> 00:25:08,439
Speaker 1: kind of personality in that because I teach magic a

540
00:25:08,440 --> 00:25:10,679
Speaker 1: lot for adult beginners, and it's where way of some

541
00:25:10,760 --> 00:25:13,600
Speaker 1: mutual acquaintances who have been involved in that, and I

542
00:25:13,600 --> 00:25:16,119
Speaker 1: can usually tell within by the second week who's going

543
00:25:16,200 --> 00:25:18,359
Speaker 1: to go far and who won't. It's the ones who

544
00:25:18,400 --> 00:25:20,880
Speaker 1: have gone away and are obsessively practicing because they find

545
00:25:20,880 --> 00:25:24,800
Speaker 1: it interesting. And that was because I mean I learned

546
00:25:24,840 --> 00:25:26,440
Speaker 1: violin when I was in primary school and I was

547
00:25:26,520 --> 00:25:29,280
Speaker 1: terrible at it, and I've tried many other instruments and

548
00:25:29,320 --> 00:25:31,199
Speaker 1: martial arts, and I've tried a bunch of like you know,

549
00:25:31,280 --> 00:25:33,439
Speaker 1: fine art, tried to learn to paint, and all of

550
00:25:33,440 --> 00:25:35,840
Speaker 1: them the practice was a chore, so I didn't do it.

551
00:25:36,480 --> 00:25:39,680
Speaker 1: Magic was the first thing where I found the practice

552
00:25:39,680 --> 00:25:43,919
Speaker 1: intrinsically interesting and entertaining, and I would procrastinate chores and

553
00:25:44,119 --> 00:25:47,639
Speaker 1: essays by working on magic skills. That was why I

554
00:25:47,640 --> 00:25:51,360
Speaker 1: got good, because I enjoyed the process without worrying about

555
00:25:51,400 --> 00:25:54,440
Speaker 1: the destination. Don't get me wrong, the destination was very exciting,

556
00:25:55,000 --> 00:25:57,040
Speaker 1: but I just enjoyed the process. So I did the

557
00:25:57,080 --> 00:25:58,120
Speaker 1: practice because it.

558
00:25:58,080 --> 00:25:58,640
Speaker 3: Was just fun.

559
00:25:58,680 --> 00:26:00,880
Speaker 1: It was fun to play with and work and explore.

560
00:26:01,760 --> 00:26:05,280
Speaker 1: And that's the biggest thing I noticed that it's unlikely

561
00:26:05,320 --> 00:26:07,080
Speaker 1: for people to get good if they don't actually enjoy

562
00:26:07,160 --> 00:26:08,840
Speaker 1: that practice process.

563
00:26:09,240 --> 00:26:12,119
Speaker 2: Do you find with other full time magicians that you

564
00:26:12,200 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 2: know that it's the same deal, Oh.

565
00:26:14,240 --> 00:26:16,800
Speaker 1: Ye, hundred percent. All the people who get good are

566
00:26:16,800 --> 00:26:18,520
Speaker 1: the ones who were really just into it for its

567
00:26:18,520 --> 00:26:21,440
Speaker 1: own sake. And that's something that comes up again and again.

568
00:26:21,520 --> 00:26:23,560
Speaker 1: I was talking to Teller of Pen and Tella after

569
00:26:23,600 --> 00:26:26,640
Speaker 1: the whole TV show thing, and I was asking kind

570
00:26:26,680 --> 00:26:29,719
Speaker 1: of his advice on I've got a full length show, like,

571
00:26:29,760 --> 00:26:32,400
Speaker 1: it's a real cool creative show project I've been working

572
00:26:32,400 --> 00:26:34,840
Speaker 1: on that. I just don't really know. It's a great show,

573
00:26:34,880 --> 00:26:36,080
Speaker 1: but I don't know how to kind of get it

574
00:26:36,119 --> 00:26:38,119
Speaker 1: picked up, how to tour it, how to make it grow.

575
00:26:38,960 --> 00:26:42,199
Speaker 1: And he did this beautiful He's a great guy, this

576
00:26:42,320 --> 00:26:45,000
Speaker 1: retrospective of sort of his pen's career, and went, well,

577
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,159
Speaker 1: I mean, let me think about it. We started off

578
00:26:47,200 --> 00:26:48,480
Speaker 1: and we had the show, and we didn't know what

579
00:26:48,480 --> 00:26:51,080
Speaker 1: we were doing, and we toured a couple of sort

580
00:26:51,080 --> 00:26:55,280
Speaker 1: of you know, community fairs, and no one cared, and

581
00:26:55,320 --> 00:26:59,359
Speaker 1: the people liked it, and basically they just kept doing

582
00:26:59,359 --> 00:27:01,840
Speaker 1: it from really no money and not much success, but

583
00:27:01,960 --> 00:27:05,439
Speaker 1: enough to keep going until eventually, after probably a decade

584
00:27:05,440 --> 00:27:08,119
Speaker 1: and a half of doing this, suddenly the right place,

585
00:27:08,240 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: right time thing happened and it started to grow. And

586
00:27:11,280 --> 00:27:15,879
Speaker 1: his takeaway, and many people have said things similarly, is

587
00:27:15,960 --> 00:27:17,840
Speaker 1: the only advice is make sure you're enjoying it for

588
00:27:17,880 --> 00:27:20,080
Speaker 1: its own sake, and would do it even if it

589
00:27:20,119 --> 00:27:22,480
Speaker 1: were never going to be successful and become a big thing,

590
00:27:22,960 --> 00:27:24,880
Speaker 1: because that's the only way you'll keep doing it long

591
00:27:25,000 --> 00:27:28,199
Speaker 1: enough to eventually hit the right combination of ingredients for

592
00:27:28,320 --> 00:27:30,520
Speaker 1: it to have a chance of becoming big unless you're

593
00:27:30,600 --> 00:27:33,679
Speaker 1: unbelievably lucky. But that's not worth gambling on. And so

594
00:27:33,720 --> 00:27:36,000
Speaker 1: make sure that you're enjoying the process and enjoying the journey,

595
00:27:36,320 --> 00:27:38,840
Speaker 1: because you really have no control over the destination.

596
00:27:39,480 --> 00:27:42,440
Speaker 2: I think that this is why I have never stuck

597
00:27:42,480 --> 00:27:44,880
Speaker 2: with magic, despite the fact that every time I've visited

598
00:27:44,960 --> 00:27:47,639
Speaker 2: the Magic Castle in la which, by the way, for

599
00:27:47,720 --> 00:27:50,320
Speaker 2: the probably every single listener that doesn't know what we're

600
00:27:50,359 --> 00:27:52,520
Speaker 2: talking about, can you just describe what the Magic Castle is?

601
00:27:52,640 --> 00:27:56,240
Speaker 1: The Magic Castle is a completely unique, bizarre, amazing place.

602
00:27:56,440 --> 00:27:59,760
Speaker 1: Easiest way to describe it imagine two separate things mashed together.

603
00:28:00,119 --> 00:28:03,919
Speaker 1: Number One, nighttime country club for magicians. Think about that

604
00:28:03,960 --> 00:28:07,080
Speaker 1: for a minute. Marinate in that idea country club at

605
00:28:07,160 --> 00:28:11,520
Speaker 1: night and again, magicians. This is nothing even closely related

606
00:28:11,520 --> 00:28:13,800
Speaker 1: to Harry Potter or a Lord of the Rings. A

607
00:28:13,840 --> 00:28:17,520
Speaker 1: magician is a live special effects performance engineer. That's what

608
00:28:17,560 --> 00:28:20,720
Speaker 1: magic actually is. It's special effects engineering for live crowds,

609
00:28:21,640 --> 00:28:23,720
Speaker 1: combined with a bit of stand up comedy and theater

610
00:28:23,800 --> 00:28:27,160
Speaker 1: and circus and clowning. But it's analytical, it's very complex,

611
00:28:27,200 --> 00:28:31,360
Speaker 1: it's very difficult, it's very interesting. So that's thing number

612
00:28:31,400 --> 00:28:34,160
Speaker 1: one nighttime country club for magicians to hang out and jam.

613
00:28:34,640 --> 00:28:37,520
Speaker 1: Then combine that with a public focused entertainment venue where

614
00:28:37,520 --> 00:28:39,920
Speaker 1: the aim is to put on shows of magic and

615
00:28:39,960 --> 00:28:42,800
Speaker 1: related arts for the general public, so you have this

616
00:28:42,960 --> 00:28:46,120
Speaker 1: weird mixed simultaneously. If magicians hang out and talking shop

617
00:28:46,160 --> 00:28:48,560
Speaker 1: and getting drinks and catching up and bouncing ideas around,

618
00:28:49,000 --> 00:28:51,520
Speaker 1: but then bringing in guests, members of the public, and

619
00:28:51,560 --> 00:28:52,680
Speaker 1: you can't just rock up.

620
00:28:52,720 --> 00:28:53,200
Speaker 3: You have to be.

621
00:28:53,160 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: Invited by a member or a guest or an associate

622
00:28:55,280 --> 00:28:59,440
Speaker 1: member to see shows, because if it were only the former,

623
00:29:00,440 --> 00:29:02,600
Speaker 1: you can't really do magic for other magicians. You can,

624
00:29:02,640 --> 00:29:05,040
Speaker 1: but it's not interesting, it's not worthwhile, it's not a

625
00:29:05,040 --> 00:29:07,680
Speaker 1: good use of time. Magic's made for non magicians to

626
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:09,600
Speaker 1: experience and be amazed by and.

627
00:29:09,560 --> 00:29:11,880
Speaker 3: Hopefully hopefully be delighted by.

628
00:29:12,000 --> 00:29:13,959
Speaker 1: And so by having those people also in the building,

629
00:29:14,160 --> 00:29:16,000
Speaker 1: then there's reason to work on all the stuff and

630
00:29:16,040 --> 00:29:17,720
Speaker 1: to do the stuff for them. And it's one of

631
00:29:17,720 --> 00:29:19,680
Speaker 1: the most amazing night outs you'll ever have if you

632
00:29:19,720 --> 00:29:21,880
Speaker 1: get a chance to go there, one.

633
00:29:21,800 --> 00:29:24,760
Speaker 2: Hundred percent, undred percent, it's just so good. It is

634
00:29:24,840 --> 00:29:26,800
Speaker 2: always the highlight of a trip to LA for me

635
00:29:27,480 --> 00:29:29,800
Speaker 2: and just to get back from where we seig made two.

636
00:29:29,920 --> 00:29:32,960
Speaker 2: I think for me, like what you said around why

637
00:29:33,520 --> 00:29:35,520
Speaker 2: magic has worked for you in terms of just the

638
00:29:35,640 --> 00:29:39,920
Speaker 2: process is intrinsically enjoyable for you, Like I think I

639
00:29:40,000 --> 00:29:45,320
Speaker 2: found that with podcasting as well. Like podcasting can certainly

640
00:29:45,360 --> 00:29:47,320
Speaker 2: be very lonely. A lot of it I do on

641
00:29:47,360 --> 00:29:50,640
Speaker 2: my own. You know, it doesn't pay money, like unless

642
00:29:50,640 --> 00:29:53,280
Speaker 2: you accept lots of advertising and get lots of downloads

643
00:29:53,320 --> 00:29:56,200
Speaker 2: and so forth. But I just, yeah, intrinsically have found

644
00:29:56,200 --> 00:29:59,640
Speaker 2: it so wonderful that I would do it even if

645
00:29:59,680 --> 00:30:05,160
Speaker 2: just one person listens, which thankfully's.

646
00:30:03,360 --> 00:30:05,000
Speaker 1: And I don't know if this is actually this is

647
00:30:05,080 --> 00:30:06,800
Speaker 1: sort of a half theory. I think about that a

648
00:30:06,800 --> 00:30:10,360
Speaker 1: lot in magic. Half theories, half ideas. That's actually most

649
00:30:10,400 --> 00:30:13,000
Speaker 1: of my creative process is I end up with a

650
00:30:13,040 --> 00:30:15,560
Speaker 1: lot of half ideas. I had to be cool if

651
00:30:15,840 --> 00:30:18,160
Speaker 1: there was a way to do this, but I don't

652
00:30:18,200 --> 00:30:20,960
Speaker 1: have the missing bit or I've got half of the routine.

653
00:30:21,000 --> 00:30:22,560
Speaker 1: I'm like, yeah, this would be a great ending to

654
00:30:22,600 --> 00:30:24,640
Speaker 1: a routine, but I don't know how to begin it yet.

655
00:30:25,120 --> 00:30:27,640
Speaker 1: And have I keep notes? I keep so many note files.

656
00:30:27,800 --> 00:30:30,800
Speaker 1: How do you collect notes in a text file app

657
00:30:30,800 --> 00:30:32,960
Speaker 1: that sinks to drop box. I'm a digital note taker,

658
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:36,200
Speaker 1: I'm not a handwriting guy. I find that, Yeah, everyone's

659
00:30:36,240 --> 00:30:38,160
Speaker 1: different in what works for you. I like them being

660
00:30:38,360 --> 00:30:42,480
Speaker 1: backed up, hence delete proof and searchable are the main things.

661
00:30:42,600 --> 00:30:44,400
Speaker 1: So I just I write into text files and I

662
00:30:44,400 --> 00:30:46,880
Speaker 1: find that's enough for me to capture the idea because

663
00:30:46,880 --> 00:30:50,600
Speaker 1: then the physical the text note triggers the mental image

664
00:30:50,600 --> 00:30:53,200
Speaker 1: of it all for me at least. So I have

665
00:30:53,240 --> 00:30:56,080
Speaker 1: lots of half ideas and whether or not they have

666
00:30:56,080 --> 00:30:58,640
Speaker 1: a turn to full ideas, most don't. About ninety percent

667
00:30:58,720 --> 00:31:01,200
Speaker 1: of them ninety five percent never become real things. But

668
00:31:01,240 --> 00:31:04,080
Speaker 1: every now and then two halves mashed together or someone

669
00:31:04,080 --> 00:31:06,320
Speaker 1: else fills in the other half, and you go, oh shit,

670
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:09,600
Speaker 1: that's the yes, that's got potential. And then you work

671
00:31:09,600 --> 00:31:11,120
Speaker 1: on it and you eventually put it on stage, and

672
00:31:11,120 --> 00:31:12,880
Speaker 1: then nine percent of the time it doesn't actually end

673
00:31:12,920 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: up being good. So it's like it's like ten percent

674
00:31:15,560 --> 00:31:19,240
Speaker 1: of the ten percent actually become really fully fleshed out

675
00:31:19,320 --> 00:31:24,000
Speaker 1: performance pieces. Yeah, and that's often heartbreaking. It's because more

676
00:31:24,040 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 1: from than not, you work on the thing and it

677
00:31:25,880 --> 00:31:27,960
Speaker 1: just doesn't get there. But you have to just lean

678
00:31:28,000 --> 00:31:30,240
Speaker 1: into that that's the process. That's how it works.

679
00:31:30,720 --> 00:31:35,240
Speaker 2: What does your I guess, like to use a sporting analogy,

680
00:31:35,320 --> 00:31:38,680
Speaker 2: your pregame prep will look like on on say, like

681
00:31:38,800 --> 00:31:42,120
Speaker 2: the day of a performance, and like when I saw

682
00:31:42,160 --> 00:31:46,840
Speaker 2: your most recent show, your experimental show, you had three shows,

683
00:31:46,920 --> 00:31:50,000
Speaker 2: different shows on in the one night, Like, what what

684
00:31:50,040 --> 00:31:52,760
Speaker 2: did that day look like for you? And then what

685
00:31:52,920 --> 00:31:55,440
Speaker 2: is that hour in the lead up looking like?

686
00:31:55,520 --> 00:31:58,960
Speaker 1: So the doing the three different shows in one night

687
00:31:59,120 --> 00:32:03,800
Speaker 1: is neither common nor advisable. That is not a I

688
00:32:03,840 --> 00:32:07,920
Speaker 1: didn't plan that. That was due to my me being

689
00:32:08,000 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: so busy with so many things that I didn't actually

690
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:13,280
Speaker 1: properly check the schedule when I agreed to do that

691
00:32:13,360 --> 00:32:15,840
Speaker 1: in the festival, I knew I was doing the two shows,

692
00:32:15,880 --> 00:32:18,640
Speaker 1: but one was my solo show, one was a part

693
00:32:18,680 --> 00:32:21,080
Speaker 1: in a trio show, and the trio show is fine

694
00:32:21,080 --> 00:32:22,800
Speaker 1: because I was doing not as much, and even that

695
00:32:22,840 --> 00:32:24,680
Speaker 1: was a bit of a stretch doing the two different shows.

696
00:32:24,720 --> 00:32:26,840
Speaker 1: But and then I agreed to do this special once

697
00:32:26,840 --> 00:32:30,760
Speaker 1: off experimental showcase thing, not realizing at the time because

698
00:32:30,800 --> 00:32:33,280
Speaker 1: I was just too all over the place to check

699
00:32:33,280 --> 00:32:35,920
Speaker 1: the schedule. That's also, honestly a lot of my creative

700
00:32:35,920 --> 00:32:38,800
Speaker 1: process is realizing that if I waited, it's like quitting

701
00:32:38,800 --> 00:32:40,440
Speaker 1: the job. If I waited till I actually had it

702
00:32:40,480 --> 00:32:42,680
Speaker 1: all figured out and all my duck's in neuro I

703
00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:45,080
Speaker 1: would never do anything because I would just not get

704
00:32:45,080 --> 00:32:47,920
Speaker 1: that organized. So I jump into things even though I'm

705
00:32:47,920 --> 00:32:50,600
Speaker 1: not fully prepared for them, because it's either that or

706
00:32:50,640 --> 00:32:52,760
Speaker 1: just don't do them, or do things so slowly. I'll

707
00:32:52,800 --> 00:32:54,720
Speaker 1: be seventy by the time I actually get anything done.

708
00:32:55,480 --> 00:32:58,680
Speaker 1: So jumping in before I'm ready. And that day was

709
00:32:58,920 --> 00:33:02,160
Speaker 1: just non star. It was sort of like a non

710
00:33:02,280 --> 00:33:06,040
Speaker 1: violent Jason Bourne movie of just waking up going all right,

711
00:33:06,080 --> 00:33:07,880
Speaker 1: we have to do this and this and this and this.

712
00:33:08,080 --> 00:33:10,600
Speaker 1: Let's go step one, Bunnings, get this coordinate that go

713
00:33:10,680 --> 00:33:14,520
Speaker 1: to that crap we forgot that? Can can we build

714
00:33:14,520 --> 00:33:15,240
Speaker 1: that out of something?

715
00:33:15,480 --> 00:33:16,440
Speaker 3: You know what? Yeah?

716
00:33:16,520 --> 00:33:18,960
Speaker 1: Someone, can you go to the supermarket pick up any

717
00:33:19,040 --> 00:33:23,280
Speaker 1: kind of long cylindrical plastic thing and a craft knife. Okay,

718
00:33:23,280 --> 00:33:25,240
Speaker 1: because I need like a circle of plastic like we

719
00:33:25,240 --> 00:33:26,160
Speaker 1: can make that out of a rod.

720
00:33:26,480 --> 00:33:26,880
Speaker 3: Do that.

721
00:33:27,320 --> 00:33:30,160
Speaker 1: Then realizing right, there's no time to make that prop right,

722
00:33:30,200 --> 00:33:33,400
Speaker 1: that routines canceled. That's how the show What's Planned b Okay,

723
00:33:33,480 --> 00:33:37,040
Speaker 1: that's dropped. Re rejuggle the set list because now there's

724
00:33:37,040 --> 00:33:39,840
Speaker 1: two things too close to each other. Okay, no, we

725
00:33:39,840 --> 00:33:42,440
Speaker 1: don't have that either. All right, that's not working. How

726
00:33:42,480 --> 00:33:43,800
Speaker 1: long have we got six hours left?

727
00:33:43,800 --> 00:33:43,960
Speaker 2: Now?

728
00:33:44,000 --> 00:33:44,280
Speaker 3: Okay?

729
00:33:44,360 --> 00:33:44,440
Speaker 2: Now?

730
00:33:44,480 --> 00:33:46,320
Speaker 1: And it was just a day of that, just non stuff.

731
00:33:46,360 --> 00:33:46,920
Speaker 3: That was that.

732
00:33:46,760 --> 00:33:51,280
Speaker 1: Wow, because that third show I hadn't really been sufficiently

733
00:33:51,320 --> 00:33:53,600
Speaker 1: well organized. Oh my god, but I'm not about to

734
00:33:53,600 --> 00:33:55,160
Speaker 1: cancel it. We're going to go anyway.

735
00:33:55,320 --> 00:33:57,000
Speaker 2: What does it look like on a typical dad, like,

736
00:33:57,040 --> 00:33:58,720
Speaker 2: let's say one of the other nights of the matching

737
00:33:59,640 --> 00:34:01,880
Speaker 2: that you know, let's say you're doing like a week

738
00:34:01,960 --> 00:34:04,760
Speaker 2: long season at the Magic Castle, where it's the same

739
00:34:04,760 --> 00:34:06,640
Speaker 2: show night after night. Let's take one of those.

740
00:34:07,080 --> 00:34:10,040
Speaker 1: That's very different. Now the show is basically under control,

741
00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:10,480
Speaker 1: you know what.

742
00:34:10,440 --> 00:34:13,200
Speaker 2: You're doing and everything, Like, what what does that look like?

743
00:34:14,000 --> 00:34:14,760
Speaker 3: It varies.

744
00:34:15,040 --> 00:34:18,680
Speaker 1: It also depends on whether how new the show is,

745
00:34:18,840 --> 00:34:21,720
Speaker 1: whether it's something that's really that you've really done before.

746
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:24,400
Speaker 1: And nearly every show I ever do is at least

747
00:34:24,480 --> 00:34:27,920
Speaker 1: partially new. There's always at least something I'm trying out,

748
00:34:28,680 --> 00:34:30,439
Speaker 1: which is again a blessing and a curse. It keeps

749
00:34:30,480 --> 00:34:33,680
Speaker 1: it exciting, but means there's always kind of something to

750
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:35,759
Speaker 1: kind of think of or some prop that I need

751
00:34:35,800 --> 00:34:39,239
Speaker 1: replacements for. But it used to be up until about

752
00:34:39,239 --> 00:34:42,320
Speaker 1: five years ago, about twenty months for a show, I'd

753
00:34:42,320 --> 00:34:45,279
Speaker 1: absolutely be going to the bathroom for that, for that

754
00:34:45,400 --> 00:34:48,880
Speaker 1: visceral human stress nervousness reaction. That was almost like a

755
00:34:48,920 --> 00:34:51,440
Speaker 1: little familiar ritual. I'm like, oh, yep, that's my body

756
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:55,000
Speaker 1: telling me it cares Okay, yep, quiet little pre show

757
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:59,040
Speaker 1: bathroom trip that happens less. So now the nerves don't

758
00:34:59,040 --> 00:35:01,520
Speaker 1: do that as much, which is always nice.

759
00:35:02,640 --> 00:35:04,440
Speaker 3: It's really it's double and triple.

760
00:35:04,160 --> 00:35:06,200
Speaker 1: Checking the set list because one of the things about

761
00:35:06,239 --> 00:35:08,920
Speaker 1: magic is you usually have so many moving parts. There

762
00:35:08,920 --> 00:35:12,480
Speaker 1: are so many intricate little bits and pieces, objects that

763
00:35:12,520 --> 00:35:15,040
Speaker 1: need to be in the right pockets, things that need

764
00:35:15,080 --> 00:35:16,799
Speaker 1: to be in the right places, stuff that needs to

765
00:35:16,800 --> 00:35:17,360
Speaker 1: be planned.

766
00:35:17,880 --> 00:35:19,280
Speaker 3: So writing checklist like, yeah.

767
00:35:19,120 --> 00:35:20,480
Speaker 2: I was going to say, have you got a checklist

768
00:35:20,520 --> 00:35:21,239
Speaker 2: that you go through?

769
00:35:21,520 --> 00:35:24,160
Speaker 1: I should have a checklist. I do have checklists for

770
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,800
Speaker 1: many of my things. This festival, I didn't have a checklist,

771
00:35:27,960 --> 00:35:30,440
Speaker 1: and that I should have had a checklist. Again, it's

772
00:35:30,480 --> 00:35:33,600
Speaker 1: should versus what is actually realistically going to happen. Yeah,

773
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,239
Speaker 1: and that's I think one of the biggest things that

774
00:35:36,880 --> 00:35:40,600
Speaker 1: people not necessarily get wrong, but most people think, well,

775
00:35:40,680 --> 00:35:42,600
Speaker 1: to do something, you have to have everything planned, you

776
00:35:42,640 --> 00:35:46,600
Speaker 1: have to have everything figured out. Like maybe never experienced

777
00:35:46,600 --> 00:35:49,000
Speaker 1: that myself, have not found that to be a barrier

778
00:35:49,000 --> 00:35:51,680
Speaker 1: in getting great things done. It's better if you do

779
00:35:51,880 --> 00:35:56,000
Speaker 1: and that's absolutely worth striving for. But I have found

780
00:35:56,000 --> 00:35:58,360
Speaker 1: you can get a lot done even when it's a

781
00:35:57,480 --> 00:36:01,000
Speaker 1: bit ramshackle and thrown together.

782
00:36:01,400 --> 00:36:05,319
Speaker 2: How are you managing your emotional state? Like, let's just

783
00:36:05,440 --> 00:36:09,319
Speaker 2: say you've had like a really stressful day or just

784
00:36:09,480 --> 00:36:12,919
Speaker 2: like bad shits happen and you've got to bring it

785
00:36:13,040 --> 00:36:16,799
Speaker 2: and you're like, you're on stage persona you know, is

786
00:36:16,880 --> 00:36:19,680
Speaker 2: like it's very smooth, but it's also very happy, an upbeat,

787
00:36:19,840 --> 00:36:23,000
Speaker 2: you know, So like, how do you bring that emotional

788
00:36:23,000 --> 00:36:24,040
Speaker 2: state if you're not in the mood.

789
00:36:24,120 --> 00:36:26,799
Speaker 1: There's something There's something I found, and I think this

790
00:36:26,880 --> 00:36:29,480
Speaker 1: is common to most people in any kind of performance art.

791
00:36:29,920 --> 00:36:33,360
Speaker 1: There's something about a crowd waiting to see a show

792
00:36:33,640 --> 00:36:36,400
Speaker 1: that is it's it's like that thing about like a

793
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:39,160
Speaker 1: crying baby is such a distracting sound because it triggers

794
00:36:39,160 --> 00:36:41,640
Speaker 1: all these primal productive instincts, like a crying baby. It's

795
00:36:41,680 --> 00:36:44,680
Speaker 1: the worst thing for humanity. We need babies, we need

796
00:36:44,719 --> 00:36:47,000
Speaker 1: more speed, we need the species to live. I think

797
00:36:47,040 --> 00:36:50,279
Speaker 1: a lot about evolutionary biology and evolutionary psychology because it

798
00:36:50,320 --> 00:36:53,120
Speaker 1: eventually explains everything to some degree. And there's something about

799
00:36:53,120 --> 00:36:56,879
Speaker 1: an expectant audience. There's these people, They've bought tickets, They're

800
00:36:56,920 --> 00:36:59,760
Speaker 1: hoping to see something that triggers some kind of primal

801
00:37:00,440 --> 00:37:03,719
Speaker 1: I can be sick as a dog, I can be exhausted,

802
00:37:03,760 --> 00:37:05,920
Speaker 1: I can be starving, I can need to be busting

803
00:37:05,920 --> 00:37:08,600
Speaker 1: for a pee, all those things, and it doesn't matter

804
00:37:08,600 --> 00:37:12,000
Speaker 1: because when it's showtime, show happens. And I've yet to

805
00:37:12,000 --> 00:37:15,120
Speaker 1: find any any state of affairs that want imagine it's

806
00:37:15,120 --> 00:37:18,120
Speaker 1: similar for you with keynotes. There's something about that energy

807
00:37:18,120 --> 00:37:21,120
Speaker 1: of a crowd, even if they're even if they're not

808
00:37:21,160 --> 00:37:24,360
Speaker 1: very energetic, but it's time to deliver something very.

809
00:37:24,200 --> 00:37:24,840
Speaker 3: Pure about it.

810
00:37:24,960 --> 00:37:27,480
Speaker 2: Yeah, I guess there is, yeah, Yeah.

811
00:37:27,120 --> 00:37:30,239
Speaker 1: But that aside in terms of sort of if I'm

812
00:37:30,280 --> 00:37:33,120
Speaker 1: not in the mood, and I definitely times where I'm

813
00:37:33,120 --> 00:37:34,360
Speaker 1: just like, oh God, I just don't want to do

814
00:37:34,360 --> 00:37:36,680
Speaker 1: this show. I just don't want to be here. Particularly

815
00:37:36,719 --> 00:37:39,160
Speaker 1: at corporate events. Not all of the many are great,

816
00:37:39,200 --> 00:37:41,719
Speaker 1: but some of them where they're not there to see you,

817
00:37:42,280 --> 00:37:45,120
Speaker 1: they're there to see the awards night. Also there's some

818
00:37:45,239 --> 00:37:49,960
Speaker 1: guy we've never heard of, who's this whatever. Then those

819
00:37:50,040 --> 00:37:54,239
Speaker 1: are those, usually the tough ones. But it's important, I

820
00:37:54,560 --> 00:37:57,680
Speaker 1: basically but pretty show what I usually do. It's like

821
00:37:57,719 --> 00:38:00,960
Speaker 1: those moments in cinema where you often see a close

822
00:38:01,000 --> 00:38:03,279
Speaker 1: up to someone's face, then a rapidfi montage of a

823
00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:06,719
Speaker 1: lot of memories, and that's a representation of a real thing.

824
00:38:07,560 --> 00:38:10,319
Speaker 1: And I just I think about the journey, and I

825
00:38:10,320 --> 00:38:12,480
Speaker 1: think about the job I used to have that I'm

826
00:38:12,480 --> 00:38:14,400
Speaker 1: glad I did, but I didn't like it at the time.

827
00:38:15,400 --> 00:38:17,640
Speaker 1: Like you know, I was an awkward kid at school.

828
00:38:17,840 --> 00:38:20,760
Speaker 1: I didn't really fit in. Magic's been such a weird journey.

829
00:38:20,800 --> 00:38:23,680
Speaker 1: Life has been such a weird journey. I got into it,

830
00:38:23,719 --> 00:38:26,799
Speaker 1: I tried, I entered a couple of competitions. I had

831
00:38:26,800 --> 00:38:29,000
Speaker 1: this job. I quit the job that was terrifying. I

832
00:38:29,080 --> 00:38:31,560
Speaker 1: made barely minimum wage for the next few years because

833
00:38:31,560 --> 00:38:33,280
Speaker 1: I didn't know how to make it work as a business.

834
00:38:34,000 --> 00:38:36,520
Speaker 1: I've competed at the World Magic Championships on a wing

835
00:38:36,560 --> 00:38:39,839
Speaker 1: and a prayer representing Australia, all of those whole montage

836
00:38:39,880 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 1: of all of that stuff and all the joy and

837
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:45,160
Speaker 1: all the pain and all the loneliness and all the darkness,

838
00:38:45,200 --> 00:38:47,480
Speaker 1: but then all the light found within the darkness all

839
00:38:47,520 --> 00:38:50,280
Speaker 1: of that, and I kind of let that just flicker

840
00:38:50,320 --> 00:38:52,120
Speaker 1: through my brain for a second and then walk on

841
00:38:52,160 --> 00:38:55,359
Speaker 1: stage and just kind of summon all of that, like

842
00:38:55,480 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 1: all the yin and all the yang and everything in between,

843
00:38:58,680 --> 00:39:02,759
Speaker 1: and just the intensity of the experience and yeah, and

844
00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:04,560
Speaker 1: then sort of channel that out onto stage.

845
00:39:04,760 --> 00:39:06,399
Speaker 3: Wow, ball all up.

846
00:39:06,680 --> 00:39:10,400
Speaker 2: That's cool. It's very cool. I want to go to

847
00:39:10,480 --> 00:39:13,280
Speaker 2: like to now the other side of the performance, which

848
00:39:13,320 --> 00:39:17,840
Speaker 2: is post game. And I've heard that you video every performance.

849
00:39:17,880 --> 00:39:18,360
Speaker 3: I try to.

850
00:39:18,480 --> 00:39:21,400
Speaker 2: I aim to tell me what does that look like

851
00:39:21,520 --> 00:39:23,799
Speaker 2: in terms of you dissecting what.

852
00:39:23,880 --> 00:39:26,919
Speaker 1: Is it's I actually actually wrote a set of notes

853
00:39:26,960 --> 00:39:30,080
Speaker 1: about this, because it's I think videoing. First of all,

854
00:39:30,120 --> 00:39:32,320
Speaker 1: if you want to get good at magic or indeed

855
00:39:32,320 --> 00:39:34,560
Speaker 1: anything number one, how to get good a thing, do

856
00:39:34,600 --> 00:39:37,200
Speaker 1: it a lot. No one gets good with that experience.

857
00:39:37,239 --> 00:39:37,439
Speaker 2: Ever.

858
00:39:37,760 --> 00:39:39,560
Speaker 1: All the theory in the world, all the training the world,

859
00:39:39,560 --> 00:39:40,960
Speaker 1: won't help you unless you get out there and you

860
00:39:41,000 --> 00:39:42,480
Speaker 1: do it. And you mess it up and you learn

861
00:39:42,480 --> 00:39:44,799
Speaker 1: from it and you keep learning. But then number two

862
00:39:44,920 --> 00:39:48,759
Speaker 1: is getting feedback on it, like getting upward feedback. That's useful, actionable,

863
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,920
Speaker 1: constructive feedback, and that's great to get from other people

864
00:39:51,920 --> 00:39:55,000
Speaker 1: but also from yourself. And so for me with magic,

865
00:39:55,160 --> 00:39:56,799
Speaker 1: when I got into it, there weren't that many people

866
00:39:56,840 --> 00:39:58,920
Speaker 1: I knew who I could get feedback from. It was

867
00:39:59,080 --> 00:40:01,600
Speaker 1: very solidary. So I would video shows and watch them,

868
00:40:02,040 --> 00:40:05,600
Speaker 1: and I would watch them mostly trying to be in

869
00:40:05,640 --> 00:40:07,640
Speaker 1: the point of view of the audience, because again that's

870
00:40:07,680 --> 00:40:10,200
Speaker 1: what matters. The audience. Experience is all that matters. That's

871
00:40:10,239 --> 00:40:13,040
Speaker 1: the product, that's the service. Magic's not the service.

872
00:40:13,280 --> 00:40:13,720
Speaker 3: The audience.

873
00:40:13,719 --> 00:40:15,360
Speaker 1: Having a great experience is the service.

874
00:40:16,160 --> 00:40:17,560
Speaker 3: And you can achieve that through.

875
00:40:17,440 --> 00:40:19,880
Speaker 1: Doing a good magic show, but that's not actually the point.

876
00:40:21,040 --> 00:40:23,400
Speaker 1: And would watch it, going all right, what could be

877
00:40:23,400 --> 00:40:27,120
Speaker 1: better about this? Like, yes, what's going well? That's usually

878
00:40:27,160 --> 00:40:30,320
Speaker 1: easy to see, but what could just what could be better?

879
00:40:30,640 --> 00:40:31,440
Speaker 3: And whether that's.

880
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,120
Speaker 1: Because the thing is bad and you need to make

881
00:40:33,160 --> 00:40:35,480
Speaker 1: it not bad or a thing's good, but how could

882
00:40:35,480 --> 00:40:37,880
Speaker 1: be amazing or it's amazing and how can we make

883
00:40:37,880 --> 00:40:40,920
Speaker 1: it transcendent? Just what could be better? And that is

884
00:40:41,000 --> 00:40:45,160
Speaker 1: everything from again the tricks themselves, but to my posture,

885
00:40:45,239 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 1: my movement, body language, How fast am I talking?

886
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:48,879
Speaker 3: Do I slur?

887
00:40:48,960 --> 00:40:52,440
Speaker 1: Any words? Are there ways I could use five words

888
00:40:52,480 --> 00:40:54,840
Speaker 1: to say what I'm saying with eight words? If I

889
00:40:54,880 --> 00:40:56,480
Speaker 1: listened to this podcast, I would have a lot of

890
00:40:56,480 --> 00:41:00,200
Speaker 1: thoughts about that, about clarity of communication. How could this

891
00:41:00,239 --> 00:41:02,680
Speaker 1: be better? How could it be more effective? And it's

892
00:41:02,719 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: just really that lens watching the video and just thinking

893
00:41:06,360 --> 00:41:11,760
Speaker 1: ultra critically but kindly, kindly critically about Yeah, any opportunity

894
00:41:11,840 --> 00:41:13,880
Speaker 1: to fix it, And then you have another crack at it,

895
00:41:14,000 --> 00:41:17,720
Speaker 1: and you will maybe get twenty percent of those things

896
00:41:17,800 --> 00:41:19,920
Speaker 1: right the next time, maybe, And then you watch that

897
00:41:20,000 --> 00:41:23,960
Speaker 1: again and you just iterate, just iterate, iterate, iterate, and

898
00:41:24,000 --> 00:41:25,880
Speaker 1: every now and then try something wildly different for the

899
00:41:25,880 --> 00:41:27,880
Speaker 1: sake of it, just to keep shaking yourself up and

900
00:41:27,880 --> 00:41:30,440
Speaker 1: give yourself the chance of discovering unexpected things.

901
00:41:30,840 --> 00:41:34,000
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you ever, because you're always used to feel

902
00:41:34,040 --> 00:41:37,440
Speaker 2: nervous before shows, but maybe now there's some shows where

903
00:41:37,480 --> 00:41:38,800
Speaker 2: you just don't feel nervous, where you just sort of

904
00:41:38,800 --> 00:41:40,080
Speaker 2: walk on and you're pretty.

905
00:41:39,960 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: Yeah, I mean there's always at least there's always at

906
00:41:42,280 --> 00:41:45,279
Speaker 1: least the slight nerves. There's different kinds of nerves. You

907
00:41:45,320 --> 00:41:47,600
Speaker 1: have the universal nerves of just this is the thing

908
00:41:47,640 --> 00:41:49,400
Speaker 1: and it's a big deal and there are people watching

909
00:41:49,480 --> 00:41:53,120
Speaker 1: and something unexpected could always happen. And there's the good,

910
00:41:53,239 --> 00:41:54,440
Speaker 1: edgy nerves that remind you.

911
00:41:54,400 --> 00:41:54,879
Speaker 3: That you care.

912
00:41:55,239 --> 00:41:57,239
Speaker 1: But then there's the really scared nerves. When it's a

913
00:41:57,280 --> 00:41:59,640
Speaker 1: brand new thing you're trying out live for the first time.

914
00:41:59,760 --> 00:42:01,959
Speaker 1: You just don't really know if it's going to work

915
00:42:02,080 --> 00:42:05,160
Speaker 1: because you can't know until you try it and then

916
00:42:05,360 --> 00:42:07,279
Speaker 1: or if it's even if it's a material I know

917
00:42:07,400 --> 00:42:10,359
Speaker 1: really well, if it's a really unusual venue or kind

918
00:42:10,400 --> 00:42:12,120
Speaker 1: of a crowd, like the first time I perform in

919
00:42:12,160 --> 00:42:14,640
Speaker 1: South America, unless I just don't know culturally what this

920
00:42:14,719 --> 00:42:16,319
Speaker 1: is going to be, like will it be great, will

921
00:42:16,320 --> 00:42:19,120
Speaker 1: it be terrible? I don't know. The more unknowns there are,

922
00:42:19,200 --> 00:42:21,919
Speaker 1: the more nerves there are, because that increases the likely

923
00:42:21,960 --> 00:42:25,160
Speaker 1: possibility space of what could happen, Yeah, that would happen.

924
00:42:25,800 --> 00:42:27,719
Speaker 2: What's the worst that could happen in a show? Because

925
00:42:27,719 --> 00:42:29,440
Speaker 2: I assume the worst thing that can happen is not

926
00:42:29,480 --> 00:42:30,359
Speaker 2: a trick going wrong.

927
00:42:30,560 --> 00:42:32,960
Speaker 3: No, and this is actually this is something I joke

928
00:42:33,000 --> 00:42:33,600
Speaker 3: about a lot that.

929
00:42:34,000 --> 00:42:36,680
Speaker 1: One of the ways you can tell an amateur magician

930
00:42:36,719 --> 00:42:39,200
Speaker 1: from a pro magician is the amateur magician worries about

931
00:42:39,200 --> 00:42:41,480
Speaker 1: messing up a trick. The pro magician knows there are

932
00:42:41,640 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: way worse things than that to worry about. The worst

933
00:42:44,400 --> 00:42:47,800
Speaker 1: thing is you kill someone, or you die like literally

934
00:42:47,840 --> 00:42:51,400
Speaker 1: that because that can happen, or you severely injure someone,

935
00:42:52,680 --> 00:42:56,000
Speaker 1: or moving back from physical injury or death, you massively

936
00:42:56,000 --> 00:42:59,960
Speaker 1: offend someone. You massively you cause a minor international incident.

937
00:43:01,239 --> 00:43:06,040
Speaker 1: You know, you injure yourself severely, you lose some very

938
00:43:06,080 --> 00:43:09,680
Speaker 1: you cause property damage to the venue, you accidentally people

939
00:43:09,760 --> 00:43:11,759
Speaker 1: have accidentally set for use on fire. Do you do

940
00:43:11,880 --> 00:43:15,360
Speaker 1: electrical faults? Like those are the things that could go wrong, Like,

941
00:43:15,440 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: that's the stuff that's worth worrying about.

942
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:18,719
Speaker 2: Have you ever injured yourself?

943
00:43:19,800 --> 00:43:23,680
Speaker 1: Yeah, a few times, not horribly. There was one time

944
00:43:23,760 --> 00:43:26,960
Speaker 1: I was doing a show and I cut myself quite badly.

945
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:29,040
Speaker 1: I was doing a trick where a thing appears inside

946
00:43:29,080 --> 00:43:31,759
Speaker 1: a lemon. That's a very common idea, but just I

947
00:43:32,040 --> 00:43:36,000
Speaker 1: was in hindsight. You know, that's how you learn using

948
00:43:36,000 --> 00:43:38,799
Speaker 1: the wrong kind of knife. It wasn't super stupidly wrong,

949
00:43:38,840 --> 00:43:41,000
Speaker 1: but it was just not as safe as it could be.

950
00:43:42,120 --> 00:43:44,680
Speaker 1: Got distracted for a split second while doing the show

951
00:43:44,760 --> 00:43:47,200
Speaker 1: because there was a crash from off stage and just

952
00:43:47,280 --> 00:43:50,200
Speaker 1: kind of sliced into my thumb and so started bleeding

953
00:43:50,239 --> 00:43:50,800
Speaker 1: on stage.

954
00:43:50,840 --> 00:43:52,400
Speaker 2: Oh goodness, And.

955
00:43:52,320 --> 00:43:53,080
Speaker 3: That's not ideal.

956
00:43:53,280 --> 00:43:56,319
Speaker 1: That's definitely worse than messing out a trick, and many,

957
00:43:56,360 --> 00:43:58,879
Speaker 1: many people have stories like that, and that's why when

958
00:43:58,880 --> 00:44:00,759
Speaker 1: you're a pro, you've you've heard the stories and you

959
00:44:00,800 --> 00:44:01,680
Speaker 1: know about those things.

960
00:44:01,800 --> 00:44:02,319
Speaker 3: What did you do?

961
00:44:04,320 --> 00:44:06,000
Speaker 1: It kind of kept sucking my thumb a lot to

962
00:44:06,239 --> 00:44:08,239
Speaker 1: stem the blood flow. Luckily it was quite late in

963
00:44:08,239 --> 00:44:10,759
Speaker 1: the show, but yeah, it did fit and just kind

964
00:44:10,800 --> 00:44:12,960
Speaker 1: of went on with it with blood slowly dripping down

965
00:44:12,960 --> 00:44:15,080
Speaker 1: my thumb and ended up with I think it's a

966
00:44:15,080 --> 00:44:17,000
Speaker 1: great name for an album, Blood on the Blood on

967
00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:19,319
Speaker 1: the Cards, because the last trick I had to do

968
00:44:19,360 --> 00:44:21,319
Speaker 1: after that was a card trick that I was doing

969
00:44:21,400 --> 00:44:24,320
Speaker 1: as the finale and as I walked off, Yeah, that

970
00:44:24,480 --> 00:44:26,680
Speaker 1: was like I kept one as a souvenir in a

971
00:44:26,680 --> 00:44:30,480
Speaker 1: little plastic bag as blood soaked playing card as you

972
00:44:30,560 --> 00:44:31,120
Speaker 1: power through.

973
00:44:31,239 --> 00:44:33,640
Speaker 2: Oh my god. Now I know that kids are one

974
00:44:33,719 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 2: of the hardest audiences to perform for it.

975
00:44:36,200 --> 00:44:42,160
Speaker 1: Why is that they're They're definitely harder unless you know

976
00:44:42,200 --> 00:44:43,759
Speaker 1: what you're doing. I mean performing for kids and now

977
00:44:43,800 --> 00:44:47,200
Speaker 1: it's are just very different styles. And it also depends

978
00:44:47,239 --> 00:44:51,280
Speaker 1: on whether performing as in entertaining and keeping their holding

979
00:44:51,320 --> 00:44:54,360
Speaker 1: their attention versus giving them the experience of something magical,

980
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:57,000
Speaker 1: Because if you really get into it, the experience of

981
00:44:57,040 --> 00:44:59,200
Speaker 1: what we call what we loosely call quote unquote magic

982
00:44:59,400 --> 00:45:03,920
Speaker 1: is seeing a thing happen that seems impossible. That's and

983
00:45:04,000 --> 00:45:06,960
Speaker 1: then you the emotional response of astonishment or amazement or

984
00:45:07,000 --> 00:45:10,040
Speaker 1: delight to that. It's not necessarily delight. It can be

985
00:45:10,120 --> 00:45:12,239
Speaker 1: very confronting. It can be it's almost like a roller

986
00:45:12,239 --> 00:45:14,440
Speaker 1: coaster or a bungee jumping thing. It can be very confronting,

987
00:45:14,480 --> 00:45:17,640
Speaker 1: it can almost hurt. And I think about roller coasters

988
00:45:17,640 --> 00:45:20,359
Speaker 1: a lot with magic. Roller coaster is in many ways

989
00:45:20,360 --> 00:45:23,680
Speaker 1: an unpleasant experience. You feel, oh God, the lurch of

990
00:45:23,680 --> 00:45:26,720
Speaker 1: your stomach, and it's stressful, and but there's something about

991
00:45:26,719 --> 00:45:30,120
Speaker 1: that rush, and I think magic is that intellectually and cognitively,

992
00:45:30,200 --> 00:45:33,759
Speaker 1: where sort of roller coaster you flirt with death in

993
00:45:33,800 --> 00:45:36,239
Speaker 1: a very safe space, Magic you flirt with sort of

994
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:38,839
Speaker 1: the death of reality in a safe space, your sense

995
00:45:38,840 --> 00:45:41,480
Speaker 1: of reality breaking down around you, but safely, but a

996
00:45:41,480 --> 00:45:43,120
Speaker 1: little bit. It's almost like chili peppers.

997
00:45:43,120 --> 00:45:45,200
Speaker 3: It's oh ah ah, what happened there?

998
00:45:45,320 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 2: Oh hurt, But I kind of liked it.

999
00:45:48,000 --> 00:45:51,200
Speaker 1: That sort of the rush of magic with kids, if

1000
00:45:51,239 --> 00:45:52,640
Speaker 1: you're just trying to give them that sense of oh

1001
00:45:52,719 --> 00:45:53,759
Speaker 1: my god, that was impossible.

1002
00:45:54,640 --> 00:45:55,440
Speaker 3: The thing with kids.

1003
00:45:55,480 --> 00:45:57,879
Speaker 1: One of the reasons magic works, and again there's men

1004
00:45:58,040 --> 00:46:03,080
Speaker 1: much more to it than this is that we are

1005
00:46:03,480 --> 00:46:06,400
Speaker 1: in program In computer science they call it lazy evaluation.

1006
00:46:06,800 --> 00:46:11,960
Speaker 1: We are cognitively incredibly smart, efficient machines. Everything on our

1007
00:46:12,040 --> 00:46:15,360
Speaker 1: visual field, barely ten percent of it is actually processed

1008
00:46:15,360 --> 00:46:17,719
Speaker 1: consciously right as you know. The edges of it are

1009
00:46:17,760 --> 00:46:20,600
Speaker 1: mostly black and white. Only the fouvia area is actually

1010
00:46:20,600 --> 00:46:24,160
Speaker 1: in focus. All of it's upside down, and your brain

1011
00:46:24,480 --> 00:46:27,720
Speaker 1: mostly shortcuts its way through it and doesn't pay active

1012
00:46:27,719 --> 00:46:30,640
Speaker 1: attention to most of it. It pays just enough attention

1013
00:46:30,719 --> 00:46:33,319
Speaker 1: to the shapes the colors that images the input to

1014
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:36,080
Speaker 1: recognize what things are, and then loads the detail in

1015
00:46:36,120 --> 00:46:39,200
Speaker 1: from memory so it doesn't have to waste valuable cognition

1016
00:46:39,239 --> 00:46:42,080
Speaker 1: time on filling in the details each time. So if

1017
00:46:42,120 --> 00:46:45,319
Speaker 1: you see something that sort of I'm trying to think

1018
00:46:45,360 --> 00:46:48,920
Speaker 1: of an example, like a coffee cup. Right, It's sort

1019
00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:51,640
Speaker 1: of whitish beige, it has familiar angles, it's got a

1020
00:46:51,680 --> 00:46:54,920
Speaker 1: circular top, and your going goes ding coffee cup done

1021
00:46:54,960 --> 00:46:57,759
Speaker 1: and stops paying close attention to it, fills in the

1022
00:46:57,840 --> 00:47:00,360
Speaker 1: high res detail from memory, and we get the illusion

1023
00:47:00,360 --> 00:47:02,239
Speaker 1: that we're seeing a high reds full color view of

1024
00:47:02,280 --> 00:47:04,799
Speaker 1: the world around us, which we're not at all. And

1025
00:47:04,840 --> 00:47:08,200
Speaker 1: so magic takes advantage of that by giving you things

1026
00:47:08,239 --> 00:47:11,160
Speaker 1: that are familiar enough to look real, even something like

1027
00:47:11,200 --> 00:47:13,359
Speaker 1: the action of placing an object from one hand into

1028
00:47:13,360 --> 00:47:15,239
Speaker 1: the other. So the thing we've seen a million times

1029
00:47:15,280 --> 00:47:17,279
Speaker 1: in our life. We know what that is, so we

1030
00:47:17,320 --> 00:47:19,480
Speaker 1: don't have to look at the details closely to know

1031
00:47:19,560 --> 00:47:22,279
Speaker 1: what happened. And that's why you can use those to

1032
00:47:22,440 --> 00:47:25,520
Speaker 1: create fake moves, things that look like I placed the

1033
00:47:25,520 --> 00:47:27,440
Speaker 1: coin in my other hand. Actually it was kept in

1034
00:47:27,480 --> 00:47:30,440
Speaker 1: the same hand, but because it exactly mimics the real gesture,

1035
00:47:30,719 --> 00:47:33,040
Speaker 1: your brain fills in the detail and you will literally

1036
00:47:33,120 --> 00:47:35,480
Speaker 1: see the coin move from hand to hand because your

1037
00:47:35,520 --> 00:47:39,000
Speaker 1: brain's filling that in rather than at coactively observing that.

1038
00:47:39,360 --> 00:47:40,960
Speaker 1: It's how a lot of magic is done, not all

1039
00:47:40,960 --> 00:47:45,200
Speaker 1: of it, but it's core concept. Kids don't have that experience.

1040
00:47:45,680 --> 00:47:47,600
Speaker 1: They haven't seen that a million times. They've seen that

1041
00:47:47,640 --> 00:47:50,359
Speaker 1: maybe a dozen times or a few hundred times. They're

1042
00:47:50,400 --> 00:47:53,080
Speaker 1: less familiar with objects. They can't do that lazy slash

1043
00:47:53,120 --> 00:47:55,319
Speaker 1: of fishent evaluation as well as adults can, so they

1044
00:47:55,360 --> 00:47:58,160
Speaker 1: have to pay more attention to everything going on around them, everything,

1045
00:47:58,680 --> 00:48:01,360
Speaker 1: even the things adults can filter out and neglect to

1046
00:48:01,520 --> 00:48:04,600
Speaker 1: really look at. So ironically, the smarter someone is, the

1047
00:48:04,680 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 1: easier they are to trick with a magic trick, because

1048
00:48:08,360 --> 00:48:12,200
Speaker 1: they're highly efficient cognitive filtering processing entities.

1049
00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:14,960
Speaker 3: And that's one of the one of the many reasons.

1050
00:48:14,680 --> 00:48:17,319
Speaker 1: Why kids are much harder to trick with magic, to fool,

1051
00:48:17,320 --> 00:48:19,319
Speaker 1: to a maze, to whatever the verb is that you

1052
00:48:19,360 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: go for, and it is magic.

1053
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:24,040
Speaker 2: Different now that you can pretty much google how any

1054
00:48:24,160 --> 00:48:25,120
Speaker 2: trick is done.

1055
00:48:25,320 --> 00:48:28,080
Speaker 3: Yeah, yes, and no, because you can.

1056
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,359
Speaker 1: Again, it's like that thing about there's no there's no

1057
00:48:30,400 --> 00:48:33,000
Speaker 1: statement about magic that always applies. There are many things

1058
00:48:33,120 --> 00:48:35,160
Speaker 1: absolutely now that you can just google how they're done.

1059
00:48:35,280 --> 00:48:37,200
Speaker 1: There are just as many that you still can't that

1060
00:48:37,280 --> 00:48:41,480
Speaker 1: are still absolutely not widely known, or even if you

1061
00:48:41,840 --> 00:48:44,880
Speaker 1: could google them, you wouldn't know exactly what to google,

1062
00:48:45,080 --> 00:48:47,040
Speaker 1: Like I do a trick with three poker chips that

1063
00:48:48,200 --> 00:48:50,759
Speaker 1: has been really good. But if you were to google, like,

1064
00:48:50,800 --> 00:48:53,560
Speaker 1: you know, magic with three poke chips from hand to hand,

1065
00:48:54,360 --> 00:48:57,120
Speaker 1: that sort of describes it, like a hundred different tricks

1066
00:48:57,600 --> 00:48:59,839
Speaker 1: that all can have actually quite different methods to it.

1067
00:49:00,239 --> 00:49:01,719
Speaker 1: And so the odds are what you're actually going to

1068
00:49:01,760 --> 00:49:05,600
Speaker 1: find on Google. You'll something close to what I'm doing

1069
00:49:05,640 --> 00:49:08,040
Speaker 1: is out there, but you won't know how to tell

1070
00:49:08,040 --> 00:49:10,120
Speaker 1: that apart from the other hundred things that aren't actually

1071
00:49:10,239 --> 00:49:13,480
Speaker 1: what I'm doing. So it's still it's changed in a bit.

1072
00:49:13,880 --> 00:49:16,520
Speaker 1: It's forced people to work a bit harder to hide

1073
00:49:16,520 --> 00:49:19,880
Speaker 1: the methods better to make sure that the method is

1074
00:49:19,920 --> 00:49:22,200
Speaker 1: not the only laurel they're resting on for their show,

1075
00:49:23,080 --> 00:49:25,319
Speaker 1: because again, a show is about more than just the trick,

1076
00:49:25,400 --> 00:49:27,279
Speaker 1: And did you know how the trick was done? If

1077
00:49:27,320 --> 00:49:29,280
Speaker 1: that's what your show is about, that's a very lame show.

1078
00:49:30,200 --> 00:49:32,680
Speaker 1: And I always strive, as do many people in the field,

1079
00:49:32,719 --> 00:49:35,080
Speaker 1: to do a show where even if someone knew how

1080
00:49:35,120 --> 00:49:37,279
Speaker 1: everything was done, they would still enjoy the show and

1081
00:49:37,320 --> 00:49:39,000
Speaker 1: still find it worth watching or buying a ticket.

1082
00:49:39,040 --> 00:49:42,680
Speaker 2: Tom that's nice if people are listening to this interview

1083
00:49:42,960 --> 00:49:46,400
Speaker 2: and going, oh, I wouldn't mind learning a magic trick

1084
00:49:46,520 --> 00:49:48,799
Speaker 2: or two, Like where do you start. I know that

1085
00:49:48,840 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 2: you do a lot of teaching as part of your work.

1086
00:49:52,280 --> 00:49:55,919
Speaker 1: I've been forever. It's annoying actually that otherwise this would

1087
00:49:55,920 --> 00:49:58,720
Speaker 1: be a great promo. I've been working on a beginning

1088
00:49:58,960 --> 00:50:01,400
Speaker 1: I do a lot of beginnity teaching. I run beginner classes,

1089
00:50:01,400 --> 00:50:03,160
Speaker 1: but I'm traveling so much right now that it's just

1090
00:50:03,160 --> 00:50:04,480
Speaker 1: hard to run them. I have a bunch of a

1091
00:50:04,480 --> 00:50:07,080
Speaker 1: few private students I see every now and then, but

1092
00:50:07,160 --> 00:50:09,799
Speaker 1: I've been trying to work on a you know, I

1093
00:50:09,800 --> 00:50:12,200
Speaker 1: mean that masterclass dot com thing is very popular right now,

1094
00:50:12,560 --> 00:50:14,000
Speaker 1: a thing in that format.

1095
00:50:14,320 --> 00:50:15,080
Speaker 3: I like that.

1096
00:50:15,080 --> 00:50:18,320
Speaker 1: That's sort of just sort of the digital version of

1097
00:50:18,360 --> 00:50:20,319
Speaker 1: the beginner's course that I teach, so I can have

1098
00:50:20,360 --> 00:50:22,439
Speaker 1: it available because there are there just aren't that many

1099
00:50:22,480 --> 00:50:26,399
Speaker 1: good beginner magic guides out there, and it's very hard.

1100
00:50:26,400 --> 00:50:28,480
Speaker 1: The best is always learning from a live teacher, because

1101
00:50:28,480 --> 00:50:31,040
Speaker 1: that person can the teacher can react to the students,

1102
00:50:31,080 --> 00:50:33,360
Speaker 1: see what you're struggling with, and guide you through it.

1103
00:50:33,400 --> 00:50:35,040
Speaker 1: But it's hard to find good teachers. It's hard to

1104
00:50:35,040 --> 00:50:36,759
Speaker 1: find good teaching materials, and I think there's a real

1105
00:50:36,840 --> 00:50:39,000
Speaker 1: gap in the market. There's a huge amount of magic

1106
00:50:39,040 --> 00:50:42,040
Speaker 1: teaching products, but they're aimed at sort of people who

1107
00:50:42,080 --> 00:50:44,239
Speaker 1: are already enthusiasts, who have already got some of the

1108
00:50:44,239 --> 00:50:47,319
Speaker 1: basics down versus the total beginner. And there's a lot

1109
00:50:47,360 --> 00:50:49,520
Speaker 1: of stuff for kids, but just not much for the

1110
00:50:49,560 --> 00:50:53,160
Speaker 1: adult beginner. Peninella actually just recently released a master class

1111
00:50:53,520 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: that I haven't watched yet. I assume it's probably pretty good,

1112
00:50:56,200 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: but I haven't seen it myself, but it's sort of

1113
00:50:59,040 --> 00:51:01,640
Speaker 1: as much about it seems to be a combination of

1114
00:51:02,040 --> 00:51:05,080
Speaker 1: insight into the world of magic as much as here

1115
00:51:05,239 --> 00:51:06,040
Speaker 1: learn some tricks.

1116
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:08,600
Speaker 2: Ah cool, I'll have to live. And is that on

1117
00:51:08,680 --> 00:51:10,000
Speaker 2: masterclass stocks apparently?

1118
00:51:10,080 --> 00:51:10,640
Speaker 3: Yeah.

1119
00:51:10,719 --> 00:51:13,440
Speaker 1: The other actually thing I recommend, ironically, one of the

1120
00:51:13,480 --> 00:51:16,320
Speaker 1: best beginner guides to magic is actually Magic for Dummies,

1121
00:51:17,000 --> 00:51:19,960
Speaker 1: which is surprising, but I've become a connoisseur of irony

1122
00:51:20,120 --> 00:51:22,320
Speaker 1: out there in the world. It's one of the best,

1123
00:51:22,400 --> 00:51:26,120
Speaker 1: most accessible beginner magic books. It's well written, it's well structured.

1124
00:51:26,320 --> 00:51:29,719
Speaker 1: It starts you off with really simple, accessible things and

1125
00:51:29,800 --> 00:51:32,240
Speaker 1: slowly ramps up the difficulty. A lot of magic beginner

1126
00:51:32,239 --> 00:51:36,000
Speaker 1: books are written by people who have reached unconscious competence

1127
00:51:36,040 --> 00:51:38,319
Speaker 1: and forgotten what it's like to be a beginner. And

1128
00:51:38,360 --> 00:51:40,640
Speaker 1: that's the biggest fail I see with most teaching, let

1129
00:51:40,680 --> 00:51:44,319
Speaker 1: alone Magic teaching is the unconscious competence problem. And that's

1130
00:51:44,440 --> 00:51:46,040
Speaker 1: part of the reason I was lucky to get it

1131
00:51:46,120 --> 00:51:48,400
Speaker 1: be a beginner as an adult because I can remember

1132
00:51:48,440 --> 00:51:49,000
Speaker 1: what it was like.

1133
00:51:49,520 --> 00:51:54,120
Speaker 2: Yes, I can imagine that would make the world of difference. Finally,

1134
00:51:54,239 --> 00:51:58,000
Speaker 2: if people want to consume more of you what you're doing,

1135
00:51:58,400 --> 00:51:58,920
Speaker 2: where can.

1136
00:51:58,800 --> 00:52:02,440
Speaker 1: They find youasically whatever app you have opened? Type things

1137
00:52:02,480 --> 00:52:05,759
Speaker 1: by Simon into It. It's my tag on Instagram and

1138
00:52:05,800 --> 00:52:09,960
Speaker 1: Facebook and Snapchat and Twitter and things by Simon dot

1139
00:52:09,960 --> 00:52:12,520
Speaker 1: com is my blog where I very occasionally write things

1140
00:52:13,719 --> 00:52:18,000
Speaker 1: if I'm very broad at self promotion. I finally made

1141
00:52:18,040 --> 00:52:20,719
Speaker 1: a post about the Magic Festival a day before opening night.

1142
00:52:22,000 --> 00:52:24,439
Speaker 1: I have a mailing list which actually you currently can't

1143
00:52:24,480 --> 00:52:25,280
Speaker 1: sign up for anyway.

1144
00:52:25,320 --> 00:52:26,400
Speaker 3: This is how bad I am at it.

1145
00:52:26,440 --> 00:52:29,520
Speaker 1: I really need to overhaul all of this, So for

1146
00:52:29,600 --> 00:52:31,840
Speaker 1: now I just hope things by Simon into whatever you

1147
00:52:31,840 --> 00:52:35,280
Speaker 1: have open awesome, and eventually, when I get my shit together,

1148
00:52:35,360 --> 00:52:37,319
Speaker 1: I'll post on one of those things about it.

1149
00:52:37,440 --> 00:52:39,200
Speaker 2: Excellent and I will link to all that in the

1150
00:52:39,280 --> 00:52:41,279
Speaker 2: show note and if you get the chance to say

1151
00:52:41,320 --> 00:52:48,040
Speaker 2: Simon live, please do. It is amazing, So thank you Simon.

1152
00:52:48,120 --> 00:52:49,480
Speaker 3: And if you do, tell me you came from the

1153
00:52:49,520 --> 00:52:50,799
Speaker 3: podcast so I know, well.

1154
00:52:50,719 --> 00:52:53,280
Speaker 2: Simon, I've loved our chat and I've good stuff.

1155
00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:54,200
Speaker 3: Always a pleasure.

1156
00:52:55,120 --> 00:52:58,040
Speaker 2: Hello there, That is it for today's show. I hope

1157
00:52:58,040 --> 00:53:00,760
Speaker 2: you enjoyed my chat with Simon and maybe you're feeling

1158
00:53:00,840 --> 00:53:04,840
Speaker 2: all inspired to go out and learn some magic tricks yourself.

1159
00:53:04,880 --> 00:53:06,960
Speaker 2: I know I feel that way whenever I catch up

1160
00:53:07,000 --> 00:53:10,600
Speaker 2: with Simon. Now, if you enjoyed today's show, why not

1161
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:14,000
Speaker 2: leave a review in Apple Podcasts. That would be so awesome,

1162
00:53:14,280 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 2: a star rating, or maybe write some lovely words. I

1163
00:53:17,080 --> 00:53:21,360
Speaker 2: read every single review and they all bring massive smiles

1164
00:53:21,400 --> 00:53:25,040
Speaker 2: to my mouth, so thank you. Everyone has left review,

1165
00:53:25,280 --> 00:53:27,239
Speaker 2: and if you haven't, and if you're enjoying how I work,

1166
00:53:27,360 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 2: please leave a review. It's very appreciated. So that's it

1167
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:31,600
Speaker 2: for today and I'll see you next time.