The Second Strategy: Reboot Aspiration
“A computer on every desk and in every home”
—Bill Gates
Scene: This really happened. It’s the early 1920s, and Harry Houdini is the world’s most celebrated magician. Right now, he’s sitting behind a closed curtain, having just escaped from one of his signature magical props, the Chinese Water Torture Cell. Moments ago, onstage before a live audience, his feet were locked into stocks fixed into a restraint brace, and he was hoisted upside-down, suspended in midair by his ankles. The brace fits on top of the Torture Cell proper, which is a sinister-looking device, a phone booth-size glass box reinforced with a steel framework and filled with water.
Headfirst, ankles locked, Houdini is lowered into the water, which sloshes over the top of the Cell as his body enters. Once the brace that holds his ankles is fitted securely atop the Cell, assistants lock it into place. The audience glimpses the writhing struggles of the magician, fully immersed, just before a curtain is drawn across the Cell.
The audience knows it’s a show. They know Houdini has escaped from the Torture Cell before. Yet they somehow feel certain that, this time, he will drown and die.
Unseen, Houdini quickly escapes. He kills time behind the curtain, swimsuit-clad, dripping, passing the minutes with the sports pages of the local paper, his ears attuned to the buzz, groan, gasp, and suppressed scream of the unseen audience. When their collective crescendo of suspenseful anxiety just begins to fade, Houdini knows the audience has just begun to lose hope. That is when he bursts out from behind the curtain, smiling, dripping, taking his bow before a theater full of witnesses giddy with the combination of awe, relief, and joy that comes from an aspiration realized.
Please click here for short chapter video summary:
And please place your order here and write an Amazon review:
Thanks!
–Team DMG Global
