Speaker 1: Do you know any magic tricks? If you don't, perhaps
Speaker 1: it's time to learn one, because it might improve the
Speaker 1: way that you work. And that's certainly been the case
Speaker 1: for psychology professor Richard Wiseman. Scientific American described Richard as
Speaker 1: one of the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologists in
Speaker 1: the world, and Richard's love of magic has improved his
Speaker 1: work as a psychologist in some unexpected ways. Of course,
Speaker 1: it's helpful when he's conducting experiments or research into the
Speaker 1: psychology of magic and illusions, but the lessons magic teachers
Speaker 1: about performance and holding an audience's attention have been just
Speaker 1: as valuable. So how has magic helped Richard learn how
Speaker 1: to craft remarkably better presentations? My name is doctor amanthe Imber.
Speaker 1: I'm an organizational psychoicist and the founder of behavioral science
Speaker 1: consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work, a show
Speaker 1: about how to help you do your best work. On
Speaker 1: today is my Favorite Tip episode. We go back to
Speaker 1: an interview from the past and I pick out my
Speaker 1: favorite tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak
Speaker 1: with Richard and we start by discussing how magic has
Speaker 1: made him a better psychologist.
Speaker 2: I think magic's quite unique because the solutions tricks are
Speaker 2: normally brilliantly elegant and simple, and normally for any what
Speaker 2: magician would call an effect, like a levitation for example,
Speaker 2: that's an effect. Then you have method, which is how
Speaker 2: it's done. There's always another way. You learn there's always
Speaker 2: another way, and that magic evolves. So the way magicians
Speaker 2: float people now is not the same as it was
Speaker 2: thirty years ago, certainly not the same as it was
Speaker 2: one hundred years ago. So you'd learn there's always another way,
Speaker 2: and that if you can find that way, then you
Speaker 2: can perform the trick in a new kind of new
Speaker 2: new way. So I think that's important obviously that most
Speaker 2: of the solutions are lateral. You know, there is a
Speaker 2: reason why audiences don't think of them is because they're
Speaker 2: a bit like those lateral thinking puzzles where you've made
Speaker 2: assumptions and trapped yourself in a in a little box.
Speaker 2: I think that's helpful. So I think those are the
Speaker 2: sort of obvious strategic ones. There is also with magic.
Speaker 2: If you perform a lot, you have to keep an
Speaker 2: audience with you, and I think that skill, obviously for
Speaker 2: live is useful. But even writing wise, you just think
Speaker 2: how can I make how can I keep an audience
Speaker 2: with me? And certainly when I'm writing lay books of
Speaker 2: non technical books, how do you keep an audience with you?
Speaker 2: So I always remember the first time I wrote I
Speaker 2: think it was one of the drafts of The Luck Factor.
Speaker 2: I'd written something like, I don't know one of my
Speaker 2: studies that lucky people miss opportunities. Sorry, lucky people spot opportunities.
Speaker 2: We brought them into the lab, we got them to
Speaker 2: do this, and my editor said, you've just given away
Speaker 2: the goods too soon that first line. You've told us
Speaker 2: what the experiment was all about, right, instead of that Right,
Speaker 2: we did an experiment to discover if lucky people tended
Speaker 2: to spot opportunities, and the results were astonishing, And now
Speaker 2: you're hooked. Now you're like, oh, what did you do?
Speaker 2: And it's a very simple thing, but you suddenly realize
Speaker 2: that often as writers or speakers, we tell people the
Speaker 2: answer and then we explain the answer, and you think
Speaker 2: it's way better to hook people. And magicians are good
Speaker 2: at that kind of thinking.
Speaker 1: What are some other principles that you've learned as a
Speaker 1: magician and mastered it as a magician? That you've found
Speaker 1: have been really useful in making your other work, your
Speaker 1: main work, more engaging.
Speaker 2: I mean, so it's tactical because I do work on
Speaker 2: the psychology of magic, so obviously you have to know
Speaker 2: magic to do that. And so they've had one of
Speaker 2: the most successful things, which is the Quacology YouTube channel,
Speaker 2: which started really early within two years of YouTube being
Speaker 2: out there, and we did it just because it was
Speaker 2: a fun way of sharing content. But I certainly weren't
Speaker 2: doing it for money. And that's another big driver on
Speaker 2: this is I always think you can tell passion projects
Speaker 2: from projects the person's getting paid for and doesn't really
Speaker 2: want to do it. It has a flavor and you
Speaker 2: can tell, you know with it. I don't know what
Speaker 2: it is, but within seconds of somebody starting to give
Speaker 2: a talk, you can tell where they want to be
Speaker 2: there or not, and if they don't want to be there,
Speaker 2: you start to think, well, I'd rather it wasn't as well,
Speaker 2: so because it's hard when you're giving the same talk
Speaker 2: again and again and again and again. And so one
Speaker 2: of the tips actually actually comes from magician I shouldn't.
Speaker 2: Rea is a very famous magician, but I won't say
Speaker 2: who that the problem you've got as a speaker is
Speaker 2: you're going to walk out and give this talk. In
Speaker 2: fact that I'm doing at the weekend, doing the Lucky Talk.
Speaker 2: I've been doing that talk for twenty something years. You
Speaker 2: have to walk out and it has to feel to
Speaker 2: that audience like this is the first time you've given it,
Speaker 2: and you're giving it for them. And I said to
Speaker 2: my friend, his magician, how do you cultivate that actor?
Speaker 2: You're doing your act twice a day, and they said,
Speaker 2: it's really straightforward. I stand in the wings and I
Speaker 2: tell myself the truth, and the truth is that one
Speaker 2: day I won't be doing this. I'll be too old,
Speaker 2: or the audience won't turn up, or I'll have an
Speaker 2: accident or whatever it is, I won't want it. One
Speaker 2: day I will not be doing this. And he said,
Speaker 2: I let the sadness of that go into my bones,
Speaker 2: and then I think it's not today, though, and I
Speaker 2: walk out and I do that now. I do it
Speaker 2: because you, and that keeps you in that moment, because
Speaker 2: you won't be anything you do where it's writing books
Speaker 2: or making videos, where I will not be doing it forever.
Speaker 2: There'll come a day when I'm not doing it, and
Speaker 2: we all assume these things are going to continue. They won't.
Speaker 2: They won't. So live in the moment and enjoy at
Speaker 2: that moment and for a live event that I think
Speaker 2: carries So I think those are all kind of magiciany
Speaker 2: thinking things. Magicians tend to be quite a thoughtful lot.
Speaker 1: I hope you enjoyed this little extract from my chat
Speaker 1: with Richard Wiseman. If you're keen to listen to the
Speaker 1: full interview, there is a link to that in the
Speaker 1: show notes. If you're looking for motives to improve the
Speaker 1: way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter
Speaker 1: that contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped
Speaker 1: me work better, ranging from software there and gadgets that
Speaker 1: I'm loving through to interesting research findings. You can sign
Speaker 1: up for that at Howiwork dot com. That's how I
Speaker 1: Work dot co. How I Work is produced by Inventium
Speaker 1: with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you
Speaker 1: to Matt Nimba, who does the audio mix for every
Speaker 1: episode and makes everything sound so much better than it
Speaker 1: would have otherwise. See you next time.