The Playback Tape

Listen to "The Playback Tape" on Spreaker. I spent some time with author and reporter Ian Frisch yesterday talking about his new book Magic Is Dead. A great conversation about the biggest names in magic. Openly I mentioned that it's such a dark place to travel. Those that have mastered the craft of magic are difficult to talk with because they live in the future and not the present. Meaning they've trained themselves to know where the magic trick is taking people that by the time the rest of us catch up to see the trick, the magician has already moved on. On this podcast we touch on that subject in way of how in the business and everyday worlds that we live we're under so much pressure to endlessly perform that we spend a lot of time in a future that isn't paying off the way our personal investment thought it should. I begin the conversation with my fears as a pre-teen. I grew up fearing what the preacher said, "One day you'll have to sit down with God and talk about your playback tape." As that kid, the only way I knew how to keep myself from totally becoming a loser was to be a huge part of the future and not put any focus on what's being lived now. Not a good choice. Mindfully we grow one day at a time. We've accepted other people's judgement as just another way of feeling like we belong. If they didn't take the time to tell us how much we suck they wouldn't care. That's not a good way to play or way to live. In magic the hand looks to be quicker than the eye. In real life the eye needs no tricks to fool the carrier of the mind and body being pushed forward. Find focus in the now. Trust that you're always in the right place. And if it feels like it's going wrong and hopelessness has flooded your stage, accept it don't horde it. Let all things move through you. Leave the playback tape somewhere you can't reach. You already know the steps taken. There's never a reason to have to explain. Take the pressure off your dreams and grow forward.