A Weird Way To Learn a New Skill
The Amplified Impact Podcast
May 5th, 2023
Let’s talk about magic.
I’ve been reading this absolutely bizarre book, and I just can’t wait to tell you all about it.
It’s a book on magic, but not the kind of magic you’re thinking of – we’re talking about sleight of hand magic, baby! And let me tell you, it’s blowing my mind.
It’s fascinating how skilled magicians can make objects disappear and manipulate their audience.
But it’s not just the technical side that’s captivating – it’s the showmanship, the way they captivate their audience with their words and mannerisms.
I’m also delving into the world of stand-up comedy and improv, because let’s face it, who doesn’t love a good laugh?
But I’ll be honest with you, I’m a little scared to try my hand at stand-up comedy, but that fear is telling me that I need to go for it.
Because if we let fear dictate our lives, we’ll never grow or push ourselves out of our comfort zones. And trust me, the payoff is always worth it.
Life’s too short to play it safe.
TWEETABLE QUOTE:
“If we let fear be our guide, if we let that be the North Star compass, that whenever you feel fear, that is the direction you should move, because that usually indicates an area of growth and opportunity.”” – Anthony Vicino
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Episode Transcript:
Anthony Vicino [00:00:00]:
I’m reading a really weird book at the moment, and I wanted to share this with you guys because I’m curious if you’ve ever done something similar. And as I thought about this book and why I’m reading it, I started thinking back to other areas of my life and other resources that I’ve leaned on that were maybe counterintuitive or just entirely non intuitive places to learn something that I can apply to something entirely different. Okay, that’s a really weird, confusing way of saying that. So let me try again. I’m reading a book on magic, not like fireball magic, but like sleight of hand magic. It would maybe make more sense if I was reading a book about fireball magic because I was a fantasy and science fiction writer. So I’m pretty into that world of things, but haven’t read too many books on close up sleight of hand magic. Now, I am fascinated with sleight of hand and magic in general, I think is very, very interesting, but not for the reasons, maybe, that you think.
Anthony Vicino [00:01:05]:
I find the illusions of a trick very interesting or the effects. However, even more so than that, I’m just so impressed with a good magician’s ability to do two things to technically execute the trick. Because sleight of hand is a very technical skill in terms of palming and making things disappear and obscuring. I just find that’s a very amazing technical skill to have, like, a lot of dexterity and awareness of controlling a scene and where your spectator is, where their line of sight is versus how you’re holding your hands and you’re positioning your body. So I find you’ve probably heard me say this before, that self awareness is a superpower. I think magicians have to be incredibly self aware about so many things, and I find that really interesting. The other side of it is they have to do this while simultaneously if they’re a good magician, at least while simultaneously entertaining. And you would think those things go hand in hand, but they’re really not.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:06]:
Really. The idea of just, like, palming a coin, making it go from one hand to the other hand isn’t very entertaining in and of itself, which you don’t have to look any further to know this than just to do the trick without any type of auditory cue or any kind of story behind it. And it’s like, yeah, that’s neat. It loses its magic. The magic is in the showmanship. And so it’s that aspect of close up magic that I find so very, very interesting, is how a good magician can captivate your attention while simultaneously with their words and their stories, their mannerisms, while simultaneously executing a very technically difficult craft. And so I’m reading a book called Strong Magic by a guy named Darwin Ortiz. And it’s a book about showmanship, specifically through the lens of magic.
Anthony Vicino [00:02:54]:
It’s a book for magicians on showmanship, specifically the sleight of hand close up magician. And this is a very highly technical not technical, but it’s a very niche book. And you’d be like, Wait, why are you picking this up? I am not a magician, by the way, guys. I do not have any magical abilities whatsoever. I couldn’t make a coin disappear. Even if you close your eyes and turned around, it’s not happening. But I picked up this book on the recommendation of this guy. His name is Vin V-I-N-H Trang.
Anthony Vicino [00:03:26]:
And he’s on this, the skill of communication. I’m trying to communicate right now to you through the spoken word. If you’re watching this on YouTube, did you know that we also have these videos available on YouTube? Yes, that’s correct. You can go to Amplified Impact, just look that up on YouTube. You’ll find the channel, or you can find our main channel, Anthony Avocino, which is probably how a lot of you guys have found me. But those videos, this podcast, is all about communicating and being an effective communicator, and I’m on this path just to become as skilled as possible in this craft. And so I am not just reading books on how to be a keynote speaker or how to talk or how to write good or any of those things, but it’s like, okay, what are some of those crafts that when I look at, I think, man, they are so good. They’re such a good performer.
Anthony Vicino [00:04:14]:
What can I learn from that? Two other areas that I find that I’ve been studying really hard recently are stand up comedians and improv artists. I think both of those are very fascinating skill sets. And I’ve actually been going back and forth with the idea of doing dabbling in some stand up comedy. I think that’s terrifying. I don’t even consider myself to be a funny person, but I think it’d be a very interesting challenge. And because I find myself a little bit resistant to the idea, like, there’s fear associated with that idea of trying to get on the stage and try to be funny, I find myself not wanting to go that direction. And if we let fear be our guide, if we let that be the North Star compass, that whenever you feel fear, that is the direction you should move, because that usually indicates an area of growth and opportunity, then the harsh reality is that that’s probably a direction I need to move. All that to say, I’ve been studying improv artists.
Anthony Vicino [00:05:07]:
I’ve been studying stand up comedians and magicians, and this book is really interesting. It’s really interesting. He’s talking a lot through the lens of these magical effects, which a lot of them I don’t understand, but there’s so many corollaries to messaging and storytelling and dramatic suspense and how to use your body in a compelling way to emphasize the point that you’re trying to make. I find it just to be a really, really good read. All that’s to say. I’m curious if there are other areas in your life that you have gone kind of tangential, like pretty off the rails in terms of where you went to learn some skills that you thought you could apply tangentially to the thing that you really wanted to learn. I’ve done this in a number of areas in my life from sports. I think if you’re trying to develop balance for surfing or for rock climbing, going doing some ballet or some dancing, those can be really great tangential ways to do that.
Anthony Vicino [00:06:10]:
I’m curious if you have anything that you’ve used in the past or if you’ve never thought of that. Maybe this can be that kind of like, paradigm shift, that pivot point where you think of, like, oh, I’ve been trying to learn this skill of maybe, say, writing and storytelling, like writing compelling emails or newsletters or whatever it is. Well, maybe where you go far abreast is actually going to anime and figuring out how do they tell their stories for a long time. To study storytelling, I went to graphic novels. I find them to be one of the most compelling forms of story because you have so many more constraints. You have different constraints rather than when you’re just writing out a novel with just words, because you have only so many panels, you can only put so much dialogue and so much exposition in there. And so the way that you tell a story is very, very different, but it’s aided by the fact that you do have images and those can tell a thousand words on their own. So very fascinating medium that I went to when I was trying to learn how to tell how to write a really good novel.
Anthony Vicino [00:07:15]:
And so I encourage you to think about what are those far flung abreast skills or trades or areas that you could go and learn about a thing, that you could then take that information and bring it over into your business, into your personal life, life, any skills that you’re trying to acquire. So that’s what I’m looking at right now. That’s what I’m doing is reading some magic books. Let me know, guys. Come find me on Instagram or Twitter and share with me what are you learning or like, what have been some really cool non intuitive resources you’ve used to acquire some pretty bad ass skills. Come let me know. I’d love to hear from you guys, and I’ll see you back here tomorrow. But until then, stay hyper focused, my friend.
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