Tag Archive for: Play Offense

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The Final Chapter: The Ninth Strategy: Empower Belief

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The Final Chapter: THE NINTH STRATEGY: EMPOWER BELIEF
Magic is not tricks; it is a way.
—Tenkai Ishida

Creating Business MagicScene: This really happened to David Morey, who was doing his one-man play, A Magical Way of Thinking, at the D.C. Capitol Fringe Festival a few years ago. Onstage with him was a charming five-year-old from the audience. Laura was her name and, magically, she was creating a beautiful paper hat even though she had never made one before. She was finding her “inner magician” . . . becoming a magician. Onstage and in the moment. 

The audience was clearly touched by her transformation, and Morey engaged with them about it, not by talking about Laura directly, but by telling another story about something that really happened in another place and at another time. 

“This effect has taught me a lot about myself,” he explained. “It’s reminded me that magic is good medicine. Shamans say that anything you do to relieve suffering or to bring joy into the world is magic. 

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The Eighth Strategy: Overcome And Prevail

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THE EIGHTH STRATEGY: OVERCOME AND PREVAIL
Never, never, never give up.
—Winston Churchill

Creating Business MagicScene: This really happened. Lance Burton achieved the accolade reserved for the greatest of Las Vegas headliners: his own stage in his own theater. The first American to win the Gold Medal awarded by the Fédération Internationale des Sociétés Magiques—the “Olympics of Magic”—in 1982, Burton is performing on his stage in his theater at the Monte Carlo Hotel when, suddenly, one of his comely assistants is menaced by what can only be described as a man-monster. 

The masked being brandishes a sword—prompting Burton to interrupt his show, grab his own trusty blade, and engage in an apparently impromptu Errol Flynn-style duel. There is thrusting, parrying, and the discordant clash of real steel against real steel. Clearly, Burton is battling for his theatrical life, conducting a brave fighting retreat up a staircase and taking his stand at the top.

“What do you want?” he demands of the apparition. “Why are you here?” 

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The Seventh Strategy: Grab The Dialogue

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THE SEVENTH STRATEGY: GRAB THE DIALOGUE

—Whoever plays offense first wins.

 —Bill Clinton

Creating Business MagicScene: This really happened. Like most sons, Harry Blackstone, Jr. imagines following in his father’s footsteps. Three decades before, the father, Harry Blackstone, Sr., made a borrowed handkerchief dance impossibly and mischievously alongside his audience’s imagination. 

Now, it’s 1987. The son enters the stage to reach for a lightbulb in a lamp held by his lovely wife. It’s hot. He waits, cooling, and now almost magically removes the still-lite bulb and admits: 

“Of course, it’s impossible … that’s why we do it.” 

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