“Musician?” He asked.
“No, magician,” I corrected him, and pointed at the playing cards on the bar in front of me.
A beat of silence. I grinned: “would you like to see a card trick?”
We’re sitting at a bar near my apartment. I’ve been dealing with a new moron at work. The kind of person that proves the old saying, “you rise to your level of incompetence.”
The last thing I want to do is to talk about my actual day job.
Magician, I thought. “Pick a card,” I said.
“Hell yeah!” He said, with a playful puckish energy. He’s dressed in a custom tailored, cream colored button down. His initials are monogrammed into the shirt cuffs, next to polished silver cuff links.
I barely finish the first card trick, and the guy erupts with excitement:
“This is crazy, but I’m hiring entertainment for my business partner’s 40th birthday. It’s gonna be a big party downtown. Hundred people. He loves cards, and I was thinking ‘where am I gonna find a good magician?'”
Before I could reply, he said,
“What are you doing on June 20th?”
We talked rate, we shook hands, I was booked. My first magic gig in over 10 years, all because I needed to do today’s magic challenge.*
* the magic challenge – perform a magic trick for a different person every day for 30 days.
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When I was about 7, my dad told me a story about an old country family living in a poor village. They had too little money, and too many mouths to feed. The winters in their cold shack of a home were bitter and difficult.
The father went to the town Rabbi for guidance.
“Rebbe, we’re broke, we’re hungry, we live in a tiny home that’s barely holding together. What do I do?”
The Rabbi thought for a minute and said, “you need a goat.”
The man was surprised, but did as he was told. The goat moved in with them. In the house, because it was too cold to leave outside.
Life got harder. Another mouth to feed. More mess to clean, less space to live.
Time passed and eventually the goat died.
When the goat passed, life without it had gotten so much easier. The house felt spacious. Every mouth had more food to eat. The family experienced the joy and freedom of life without the animal. They were no richer than they were before, but much happier to be back to the good old days.
When things were bad, they never thought that it could get worse, until it did. This was the wisdom of the goat.
This magic challenge – all 30 days of it – was my goat.
The added layer of work and stress, of knowing that I needed to perform a magic trick for a new person every day.
It forced me to meet people. To have uncomfortable conversations. To perform and connect even when my social batteries were drained.
That was my goat, and it changed my life.
_
Ten lessons learned from 30 days of magic
1. Success comes in direct proportion to the number of uncomfortable conversations we’re willing to have. Uncomfortable conversations drive growth. Like asking a stranger to show a magic trick. Or a boss for a raise. Or a crush out to coffee. Whatever the answer, we learn much about ourselves just by asking.
2. There is meaning in suffering. Having “a goat” – a useless, hard thing – makes forgettable days memorable.
3. Daily practice under the gun helps the magic powers run. To get good at something – whether magic, public speaking, working out, writing – you have to do it often and consistently. Even when you don’t want to. Especially when you don’t want to.
4. Coming out of the magic closet to friends that didn’t know about my performing past was liberating. And their surprise when I showed them a cool trick was exhilarating.
5. Frequent performance means that things will go wrong. That’s where you get good. When you accidentally drop the cards and learn to improvise, you learn things about yourself.
6. Reflect on your performances. A failure is only that if you don’t turn it into a learning experience. Never let a good crisis go to waste.
7. The magic challenge forced me back on my feet after after blowing out my back. It gave me the drive to recover, to strictly follow my PT and to start walking. Having a strong ‘why’ gave my mind the drive to put one foot after another, even when it hurt.
8. I became other people’s party trick. The residual benefits of those 30 days of hard work have been extraordinary. More bookings after the first gig, performances for celebrities, connections in unexpected places. Introductions from people who want to show off their new magic friend.
9. Magic makes for a great ice breaker! Anything that’s unique and memorable makes drab encounters memorable.
10. But! Not everyone likes magic. And that’s okay. It’s okay to not always use tricks as a social crutch. Learn to read the room.
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Postscript – as always, I asked my hetero magic partner, Jake Dapper, for his feedback on the magic challenge. Here it is:
People are a lot more open to it than I expected. I think I recall us chatting, surprised that neither of us had been rejected yet. There’s an etiquette to follow, but if you abide you can easily perform for >90% of the groups you approach.
In magic, we are well aware that you don’t need a GOOD reason to do something, you just need A reason. I had learned of a networking technique to set a communication goal for yourself. For instance, I could say I want to have a coffee chat with a professional in my network twice a month. Simply having this goal gives you a reason to reach out to people in that network and start those conversations. I applied this idea fully and successfully to my magic challenge goal. My #1 approach throughout this challenge hinged on telling people about the challenge. “Hey I’m sorry to bother you all, I’m actually a magician and I’m doing this daily magic challenge. I haven’t done any magic today, could I show you a quick card trick?” 60% of the time, it works every time. Actually more, but long live the meme.
It is more than a magic challenge, it’s an experiment in human connection. The magic is a bridge to small moments of personal interaction. I heard stories I was interested in, and stories that I wasn’t. Some people would ask all about me, with a genuine interest in my hobby. Others would use the opportunity to dump their life story on an open ear. The sheer percentage of encounters that I genuinely learned from was very high.
The challenge is a great opportunity to learn and practice basic paradigms for inter-personal connection, like the FORD method. The conversations that result from this, and impacts to your own charisma, will be far more memorable and impactful than your dumb tricks.
Cold approach magic is very limiting. You can’t setup a whole narrative. I found myself repeating the same quick hit card reveals or color changes for days on end. The experience was instrumental in building confidence on the approach and social aspect of performing, but you will desire more opportunities to get into more involved magic. You can’t rely on these encounters alone to make you a well-rounded magician.
Stay safe. Choose people wisely.
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