junius972's Journal

Delos Chang's Take On Why Magicians make great Businessmen
How does Delos Chang do it Upon initial glance, sleight-of-hand magic and life may not seem to be extremely correlated at all. However, take a deeper look and you will see similarities between the two: some, such as Kasparov, a chess champion, find it reasonable to view life as a sort of technique game. Indeed, our lives are essentially decorated with interactions balancing career, romance, and at its core, fundamental fundamental human interactions that we''ve picked up because grade school. Within the middle of it all, our success in our lives hinge on the essential aspect of simply how we interact with other people, how we communicate, how we present our thoughts. In magic, too, the entirety of the effect lies primarily on the words of the magician and how nicely he can construct a easy illusion into a feat of impossibility. In life, careers are built not solely on academic knowledge or specialized skill but rather than interpersonal connections, networking, and again, building something truly fantastic in an additional person''s eyes out of nothing! The adage goes: if you treat something like absolutely nothing, then the world will see it as nothing. Indeed, this has been repeated by well-known late magician, Tommy Wonder, whose ambitious card routines involved copious amounts of psychology and of course, misdirection. With these two tools, magicians create grandeur and awe out of easy sleight of hand. And here, too, misdirection and psychology play an integral component of the human equation: with simple words and simple actions, we can influence other people and present ourselves in a better light. Take for instance, the amateur magician, who while can perform a miracle Ace-cutting routine, cannot supplement his trick with essential communication. He might be able to perform the trick cleanly and purely but he does not necessarily entertain. Compare him to another magician who perhaps may not have as much raw talent but surely makes up for it in his presentation and communication abilities. He engrosses his audience with his slick patter; he really engages them and leads them into his own universe. In life, too, the constructs of our everyday interactions hinge not upon plain academic ability and theoretical prowess but instead in our personality and the communication of those skills. After all, when one practices magic, it''s almost tacitly acknowledged that 1 expects to present the trick within the near future.

So where does misdirection come in With misdirection, a magician can perform the simplest sleight of hand - say the double-lift in his Ambitious Card routine - and come via as a wizard. Pure genius. He presents to the audience something of importance while he concentrates on his actual agenda. Here, too, life imitates the art of misdirection. In basic social psychology, scarcity reigns as an adjudicating method of influence: present scarcity to someone and their immediate desire for it skyrockets. Salesman use it all of the time - life''s version of misdirection at its finest. In chess, we move one piece to maybe mask the agenda of another piece. We wish our opponent to interpret the move wrongly, assigning it of great value that he moves to counter. And in performing so, he fails to notice the much more essential move. A classic version of misdirection involves capturing your opponents'' chess to distract them whenever you really intend to attack their king. Perhaps in company and also the political atmosphere, people often say 1 thing only to do an additional.

Whatever our ends, communication and presentation are our means. In magic, too, the strength of the effect relies squarely on the performer and his charismatic ability to preserve suspense, create artful misdirection. Simply watch any street magician perform his routine as he flexibly interacts with an ever-changing audience. You can almost imagine him in a business suit closing out a sale.

Delos Chang is a sleight-of-hand magician, a stand-up comic, and a Dartmouth humor columnist.

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