Do you know any magic tricks? If you don't, perhaps it's time to learn one, because it might improve the way that you work. And that's certainly been the case for psychology professor Richard Wiseman. Scientific American described Richard as one of the most interesting and innovative experimental psychologists in the world, and Richard's love of magic has improved his
work as a psychologist in some unexpected ways. Of course, it's helpful when he's conducting experiments or research into the psychology of magic and illusions, but the lessons magic teachers about performance and holding an audience's attention have been just as valuable. So how has magic helped Richard learn how to craft remarkably better presentations? My name is doctor amanthe Imber. I'm an organizational psychoicist and the founder of behavioral science
consultancy Inventium. And this is how I work, a show about how to help you do your best work. On today is my Favorite Tip episode. We go back to an interview from the past and I pick out my favorite tip from the interview. In today's show, I speak with Richard and we start by discussing how magic has made him a better psychologist.
I think magic's quite unique because the solutions tricks are normally brilliantly elegant and simple, and normally for any what magician would call an effect, like a levitation for example, that's an effect. Then you have method, which is how it's done. There's always another way. You learn there's always another way, and that magic evolves. So the way magicians float people now is not the same as it was thirty years ago, certainly not the same as it was
one hundred years ago. So you'd learn there's always another way, and that if you can find that way, then you can perform the trick in a new kind of new new way. So I think that's important obviously that most of the solutions are lateral. You know, there is a reason why audiences don't think of them is because they're a bit like those lateral thinking puzzles where you've made assumptions and trapped yourself in a in a little box. I think that's helpful. So I think those are the
sort of obvious strategic ones. There is also with magic. If you perform a lot, you have to keep an audience with you, and I think that skill, obviously for live is useful. But even writing wise, you just think how can I make how can I keep an audience with me? And certainly when I'm writing lay books of non technical books, how do you keep an audience with you? So I always remember the first time I wrote I think it was one of the drafts of The Luck Factor.
I'd written something like, I don't know one of my studies that lucky people miss opportunities. Sorry, lucky people spot opportunities. We brought them into the lab, we got them to do this, and my editor said, you've just given away the goods too soon that first line. You've told us what the experiment was all about, right, instead of that Right, we did an experiment to discover if lucky people tended to spot opportunities, and the results were astonishing, And now
you're hooked. Now you're like, oh, what did you do? And it's a very simple thing, but you suddenly realize that often as writers or speakers, we tell people the answer and then we explain the answer, and you think it's way better to hook people. And magicians are good at that kind of thinking.
What are some other principles that you've learned as a magician and mastered it as a magician? That you've found have been really useful in making your other work, your main work, more engaging.
I mean, so it's tactical because I do work on the psychology of magic, so obviously you have to know magic to do that. And so they've had one of the most successful things, which is the Quacology YouTube channel, which started really early within two years of YouTube being out there, and we did it just because it was a fun way of sharing content. But I certainly weren't
doing it for money. And that's another big driver on this is I always think you can tell passion projects from projects the person's getting paid for and doesn't really want to do it. It has a flavor and you
can tell, you know with it. I don't know what it is, but within seconds of somebody starting to give a talk, you can tell where they want to be there or not, and if they don't want to be there, you start to think, well, I'd rather it wasn't as well, so because it's hard when you're giving the same talk again and again and again and again. And so one of the tips actually actually comes from magician I shouldn't.
Rea is a very famous magician, but I won't say who that the problem you've got as a speaker is you're going to walk out and give this talk. In fact that I'm doing at the weekend, doing the Lucky Talk. I've been doing that talk for twenty something years. You have to walk out and it has to feel to that audience like this is the first time you've given it, and you're giving it for them. And I said to my friend, his magician, how do you cultivate that actor?
You're doing your act twice a day, and they said, it's really straightforward. I stand in the wings and I tell myself the truth, and the truth is that one day I won't be doing this. I'll be too old, or the audience won't turn up, or I'll have an accident or whatever it is, I won't want it. One day I will not be doing this. And he said, I let the sadness of that go into my bones, and then I think it's not today, though, and I
walk out and I do that now. I do it because you, and that keeps you in that moment, because you won't be anything you do where it's writing books or making videos, where I will not be doing it forever. There'll come a day when I'm not doing it, and we all assume these things are going to continue. They won't. They won't. So live in the moment and enjoy at that moment and for a live event that I think carries So I think those are all kind of magiciany
thinking things. Magicians tend to be quite a thoughtful lot.
I hope you enjoyed this little extract from my chat with Richard Wiseman. If you're keen to listen to the full interview, there is a link to that in the show notes. If you're looking for motives to improve the way that you work, I write a short fortnightly newsletter that contains three cool things that I've discovered that helped me work better, ranging from software there and gadgets that I'm loving through to interesting research findings. You can sign
up for that at Howiwork dot com. That's how I Work dot co. How I Work is produced by Inventium with production support from Dead Set Studios. And thank you to Matt Nimba, who does the audio mix for every episode and makes everything sound so much better than it would have otherwise. See you next time.