# 52 - The Secret of How Magicians Fool Us

Episode 52

[00:00:00] : Hello, everyone. It's Rick Lewis with the follow through Formula Podcast and Episode 52. Here are the thoughts I have for you today, having some training as a magician as well as a comedian in circus Performer. I want to tell you a secret that I learned about how magicians fool us and it works like this. Imagine that a magician removes a small red scarf from his pocket. He holds it up for you to see and then tells you what he's about to do, he says. I'm going to place this scarf inside my hand. Then I'm gonna count to three, and by the time I open my hand, the scarf will be gone. In the meantime, he's stuffing the scarf into his fist, right in front of you. Then he says, Now, pay attention because if you're not watching carefully, you're going to be fooled. He implies that if we concentrate on what he's doing, will be able to figure out the trick. We may even feel empowered because we've been given a warning and the opportunity to save ourselves from being deceived. The trick were hoping to catch, however, has already happened. The scarf is long gone from the magician's fist before he invites you to start paying attention in your innocents, you believe the magician is giving you a sporting chance. But I'm sorry to say, no, he isn't. I'm telling you this because it's an exact metaphor for what is currently happening in our daily lives on the stage of riel life. It's our cultural conditioning that takes the place of the magician. As hard as we try to watch carefully, most of us keep getting tricked into compromising our vision of excellence. That's because the unwritten rules of our culture have already happened. They were introduced to us early in our lives, and they now have an influence on us that we don't even see by the time we start thinking about realizing Ah, personal vision or dream, we've already been stripped of our potential. Now I want to tell you a story about Harry Houdini, and I think most people know who Harry Houdini Waas. He was a magician and a famous escape artist who lived in the late 18 hundreds and died in 1926. He was, Ah, Hungarian born illusionist and stunt performer who is probably most well known for his escape acts. Now Harry Houdini had one stunt called the Underwater box, where he would allow himself to be put inside a wooden crate next to a river. The crate would be nailed shut, and then chains or metal straps would be wrapped around the outside of the crate in all directions. So from the spectator viewpoint, you'd look at this crate and it's nailed shut and all the chains and straps air on the outside, and you think there is absolutely no way out of that box. Houdini would then have himself lowered into the river. The box would summarily sink to the bottom, and then a couple minutes later, he would appear at the surface of the river. The box would float to the surface and when inspected, would be found still nailed shut. And inside were the man, Nichols and handcuffs that were locked around him on the bottom of the box. Houdini's trick, his secret of escaping this box was he rigged the panels off the box with hinges on the inside, and his way of escaping was actually incredibly simple. He challenged the basic assumption we all have about how you could get out of a box, which is you would have to open the lid. Instead, one panel of that box folded inward, So after the box was thrown into the river, he simply removed two pins. He folded the panel inward toward himself, which was an unobstructed means of escape, swam out and simply pulled the panel shut behind him. Houdini did spend years and years training himself in various forms of agility, manipulation and physical capacities that allowed him to do amazing things. But when you look at this box escape, what Houdini actually excel? That the true and highest form of Houdini's daring was his ability to challenge assumptions, to challenge his own thinking and challenge the way that others think to perform the illusion of magic. I love this analogy because most of us are trained to think of surpassing our limits by fighting with external forces and applying mawr force or exertion toward an external obstacle. But if we take that same commitment to overcoming limits and we turn our attention inward and discover inside of us what it is that we can perceive mawr clearly and give way to, we often find a means off escaping our limitations that is farm or impressive and surprising and productive and simple than we ever thought possible all along in the follow through formula podcast. What I've been inviting all of us to do is to place our attention on the assumptions were holding about ourselves and the way we work and what we're capable of turning around and taking the time to examine. What those assumptions are is the equivalent off folding the panel inward Self observation, self examination Self inquiry is a simple device that we can use to free ourselves from limitations that seem inescapable. Being able to journey internally and challenge the very root of our assumptions is the most valuable skill we can develop. Here's a tangible example off why this is important and how it relates to the idea that culturally we're Onley trained to pay attention after the magic trick has already happened. If we just look at all the ordinary ways were trained by our culture to pursue happiness, we'd come up with a quick list of 10 to 50 things that include such items as having a lot of money, having a nice house, attracting ah, beautiful partner, having a lot of followers and social media being a celebrity, winning at sporting competitions, having a nice car, having six pack abs. We could make a list like this off. All the first layer of things that our culture tells us will make us happy. Let's say that we feel unhappy, but we already have, ah, high paying job. But we feel stressed out and dissatisfied if we Onley start paying attention. At that point, we look around and say Oh, I don't feel happy But then our attention immediately goes to the rest of the items on this culturally conditioned list off what is supposed to make us happy. So the job isn't working. We might divorce and figure Oh, I'm in the wrong relationship or we might decide if I just go to the gym more times a week and change my appearance. Then I'll be happier and like that, we can keep shifting our attention to try different things on the list. But never find that internal sense off alignment with what is really true for us, with something that we could call a meaningful purpose or direction. And so we continue to feel unhappy paying attention before The trick ever happens, involves a deeper form of self inquiry of introspection that would allow us to connect with who we really are. Prior to that conditioning, that's a certain kind of training and a certain kind of neck that Houdini had access to. That allowed him to discover some uncommon openings that he could use to produce this experience of magic. And if we want a sense of that kind of magic in our life, we have to spend the time looking inward until we discover those simple devices that we can use to escape the cultural box that most of us find ourselves in. So that's the idea I wanted to share today here in Episode 52 off the follow through formula Podcast. My name is Rick Lewis, and I'll be back tomorrow.