Making a Moment Magical
Here's a little secret for you: sometimes magicians get surprised during their tricks too!
You may not realize it, but we practice for hours on an effect before we ever present it to an audience (well, the good magicians do, anyway), and we try to prepare for just about any eventuality. What if I can't find their card? What if I pull out the wrong card instead? What if I drop the deck? What if an angry gorilla escapes from the zoo and charges the table? Okay, maybe I'm a little too over-cautious.
That being said, there are times when things happen we never thought to prepare for. That's what makes every performance electric because we can't relax or we might just mess up.
This past weekend I was performing at a private party. I opened with one of my favorite card routines and in the middle of the first phase of the trick, I had the spectator cut the cards. Now, from this point on, I was supposed to do a lot of work, but I could tell in my own special way (shhhhh, it's a secret as to how) that she had cut the deck perfectly to bring her card to the top of the deck. I had never practiced what to do if that happened, and never even thought it would be something that could honestly ever happen. But it did.
And right there, that moment became magical for both of us.
Think about something coming up for you this weekend. Maybe it's dinner with your spouse/significant other. Maybe it's a business meeting that everyone knows is going to be a long, torturous time (aren't they all?). Maybe it's just a quick cup of coffee with a friend. In your mind, run over what you think will happen and how you see it all going.
Now take just a second and imagine what you could do to take one moment of that time spent together and do the unexpected. What could you do that would skyrocket that memory to the realm of the unforgettable?
Maybe it's something special like surprising your spouse with a red rose at dinner. Maybe you open your briefcase and drop a two-pound bag of candy on the middle of the meeting table. Maybe you show your friend some old picture of the two of you from years ago in your 90's clothes and hair. Just something that says "This moment is going to be different from what you expected to happen, and it's going to be a good memory".
See, a key facet of a good magic trick is the unexpected. If I told you ahead of time I was going to make a coin vanish and reappear in your shoe, you might be amazed when I made it disappear, but you wouldn't really be surprised (provided you knew I was a magician and not just some weird guy who walked up to you and started talking crazy).
But what if I just showed you a coin that was there, then suddenly it wasn't there, and finally I had you take off your shoe to find the coin safely tucked away in it? I'll bet that would be a moment that would stand out to you for that day.
You may not know a magic trick, but find a way to create a magical moment for someone today. Find some way to make today extraordinary for someone around you. Surprise someone in a good way!
As for my spectator with the amazing luck? I had her turn over the top card without my ever having touched the deck, and when she saw her card, the entire group of 12 people went nuts.
And little did they know, the magician was just as impressed as they were.
