Creating Real Magic with Adam Axford #158

They're guys they do magic they are the magic guys. Ladies and gentlemen welcome to episode 158 of the magic guys oh it's good to

hear that it's good to hear that number to my left we got nick k welcome to the show friends oh yeah and to my We still don't have Doug here. Doug's gone again. But this week, it's Mardi Gras season in New Orleans. I feel like Mardi Gras happens more often than anywhere else in the world in New Orleans for some reason. Does it feel like it's been less than a year since he last celebrated that?

Now you mention it, I totally think that is a thing. But in the same breath, it's kind of like Doug could be here, but I imagine that he would be so incapacitated that he wouldn't be able to string his words together. I saw some of his live streams, and it's just him walking through the street.

Sweet uh it was like just like a few hours ago walked through the street people are throwing the the what do you call it the bees down from the balconies and he's just like he's just he's just amongst it so doug doug is away which means we get to play ha ha but how are you today nick living the dream friend i'm actually really excited for uh our guest today not only is he a good friend but he's constantly got so many events and gigs going on that we hardly have an opportunity to catch up

even when we're on his side of the planet so i'm pretty excited for that how's your and even yeah look week was good and in australia here we've got valentine's day coming up tomorrow so i have a show on tomorrow at the theater of magic so i'm actually celebrating valentine's day tonight with the missus and then i'll do a show tomorrow so you know.

That's why I just want to flex. That's all I did. I had to go out this morning before the pod to pick up some, some roses, some chocolates, all the, all the things, all the, the boyfriend Judy things. She can hear it. She can hear us. You're going to ruin everything. I don't think out of 158 episodes, she's listened to like half an episode. So if this is the one she starts listening to, babe, good job. You know, who does listen to it? The guys in our chat. We have a good friend, Gary David.

Hey, Eddie, we have Johnny Prentice. We have Tim Askin and questions. Guys, drop us a line. If you have any questions, you can drop them in the chat. And of course, we'll ask those questions to our amazing guests. We should probably take a moment to introduce, don't you think? I think, you know, I think so. And we both know this dude. We've probably met him in very different ways. How did I first come across our guest here? I think we just knew each other

through the grapevine of professional gigs. gigs and we finally got to meet up and we realized, oh, you're cool. And he was like, oh, you're cool. But he said it with a much better accent. And I heard this word, wordsmith. I was like, oh, this guy calls himself a wordsmith. And I was like, yeah, sure. Great. But then I started hanging out with him and seeing him perform. And I realized what that actually meant. And I was like, okay, that's what he is. So some people call him a wordsmith.

Some people call him a storyteller. He's an author now, riddle and rhyme and magician, which is why he's on this pod. But he's just the The man at captivating audiences. And there's so much we want to talk to him about with such little time. So I think we bring him on. So ladies and gentlemen, please welcome Adam Axford. Music. What an intro. What an absolute hangar of an intro.

Adam Axford, welcome to the Magic Guide podcast. How have you been, friend? For those that don't know who you are, please tell us who you are, what you do. Let us hear from sexy man's mouth. My name's Adam Axford. I am a hyper-creative individual, a slave to my creative urges. And I'm very lucky to get to vent it in the highly paid profession of magic and wordsmithry. So, yeah, I perform at events like you guys. Close-up roving gigs, of course, some stage bits and pieces.

And I've been powering into some open mics lately. So I've got one of them happening tonight. He's full of – yeah, this guy is full of magic and also full of – what would you call it, lyricism? Spoken word? Maybe. Yeah, when I'm on, my linguistic capabilities flow, yeah, and I really enjoy the concepts of words that have multiple meanings.

So I'll always be drawing upon the different opportunities is like what i was thinking something yesterday i was saying like about the importance of letting yourself flow don't force it just tap into the brilliance and then i was like oh holy wow there's flow and force it is like sink and tap into so like anyway these just things happen and and it's beautiful so imagery word play and the beautiful connections that

our language bring because that's the real magic we've got our ability to communicate with each other using these little sounds we make, You know, it's really hard to sort of picture like this flow and that you're sort of mentioning. So if I'll just give the listeners a bit of a background, because when you and I first set up a friendship, you were doing the Melbourne Magic Festival and you were performing really hard hitting, emotionally driven music.

Of mentalism and magic. And it was just really, really taking people's heads off in the most beautiful way. And what I loved about it is that with your skillset and your linguistic skillset, I should say, you attracted a crowd that ordinarily wouldn't ever see magic. And one of the most amazing things that I got to see other than your show was your audience.

And for those of you that don't know, when you see poetry slams of this nature, and rather than applauding, applauding, they clapped their fingers, snap their fingers like this. And it was so cool that as you were delivering your dialogue, this room with with, you know, nearly 100 people, and it was just snapping away. And I was like, this experience, and I love that you have this amazing creativity that you can like, it's so dynamic to be able to bring these worlds together.

I mean, how do you bring flow is it something you can teach is it inherent do you just freestyle it are you born with it how do you flow I love the questions man and cheers for that like yeah I remember the first time I met you was there and it was one of the meetups before the Melbourne Magic Fest I didn't realize it was one of those meetings that could have been an email but I flew to Melbourne so I could have this little like catch up with

everyone and see the venue and I'm I'm there and I'm like this little like oddball outcast. I don't know anyone. I'm in Melbourne. It's always rainy and cold. And I'm there. And then all of a sudden whizzing without movement on his hoverboard type skateboard thing is Nick. And he just cruises in with a big smile on his face and a fucking suit on. Right. And just arrives. He's like, hi, everyone. I'm like, oh, yeah, I'm going to get on with this guy. This is the one.

So, yeah, you and Seb as well. I was like, yeah, we're different flavors. And yeah, I could see. A little bit of spice, you need that sometimes. We're a bit delicious, no doubt. But back, I digress back to your question, flow, accessing that, a whole lot of it comes into trust, right? And it's the ability to just trust your ability to say what is that needs to be said in the moment. And also to see what comes through.

Because if you're putting so much of a conscious focus over every single word, then that is your critical factor, your conscious mind at work. And there is this idea about flow state, people feel that when we access our brilliance, access our flow state, we're using more of our brain.

The reality is we actually use less and what happens is our prefrontal cortex that's responsible for like governing our rational behaviors and it chooses whether or not it's the editor basically chooses what goes into the final piece that bit switches off when we're in flow so rather than it selecting the brilliance it just lets the brilliance out and by getting out of your own way so i guess it's an absence of self the

lessons and the higher abilities come through how many How many times have you been in flow and sort of said something and you're like, oh, God, no, I wish I didn't say that. It's already like, oh, crap. I mean, like, has it ever resulted in you stepping in it? You know what I mean? I made an awful joke once, and I mentioned it once on the podcast, and I was performing away. And I was fooling around, and there was a guy with a mustache. He was like a Tom Selleck and another guy and another guy.

And, you know, I like to make a joke whenever someone is signing a card. I'm like, can you sign a card? I'm a big fan. Make it out to Nick K, you know, and I make a bit of a joke about it. That I performed it for an Asian guy one time. And I was like, and I said the joke, I'm like, you know, Sonic, I'm a big fan. And everyone looked at me like, what? And I was like, yeah, you know, and I did the Gundam dance.

And I regret doing that because it was so ill, so poor, like, to assume that all Asian people know the Gundam or whatever else, you know what I mean? And no one got offended, everyone laughed, but I thought to myself, like, you know what, Nick, you're a lot more gentlemanly like that and you don't make fun.

So I regret saying that. so like do you find yourself stepping in stepping in yeah those are the bits that like keep us up at night right they're the bits where you can have a killer set yeah i'm still having a whirring kind of progress of trying to make sense of something i said or did or didn't say or didn't do however many years ago right they're the things that haunt us but in reality back it up like there's this whole idea of like don't apologize don't double

down you know it's like if you're in jazz playing playing jazz they say you hit the wrong note hit it two more times and it's it becomes the thing you own the moment so I totally get you and there are times where something will come out my mouth and I'll feel the needs to reel it back in but if you don't do that and then you just like let the spirit of what's come out happen ultimately like you're embodying the archetype of the trickster or the fool and these are very important roles

because these roles as the fool or the tricks that are the precursors to becoming some kind of saviour, at least in the Jungian archetype. So you must fall on your face and fail and humiliate yourself and be beneath contempt.

Before you can eventually lead and guide others and you can see this often even if you look at someone like russell brand is from up the road from where i'm from probably won't be able to unhear it now i said it and uh he's gone from being very much the fall with his silliness and his whimsical wit and now he's very much enlightening the people or at least attempt attempting to uh speak to his however many million awakening wonders

every day with his channel right So you can see this journey from people who are the joker, who eventually become some kind of higher power in the role of guiding people to some kind of light. So trust it. And I think that that's an OK joke. We should be able to have safe spaces within certain environments, not worry about upsetting and offending. If you're not offending anybody with your art, it is not art.

You're not pushing any boundaries. is art is the exploration of the edges the boundaries the the spaces that other people do not dare to go and the goal is to go there into beyond the pale into this adventure bit outside of our comfort zone place where no one else wants to step foot and bring back some trinkets bring home some souvenirs to share with the others i voyaged over the mountain top and when i came back i brought you this you won't believe what i found

there so that's the goal of the artist so yeah more more stupid jokes to make you cringe mate i think you'll you might find gold in there and you can tell he can tell he had he he actually lives in a mountaintop because those wonderful australian bugs and beetles that are in the ambience right now from uh adam's living room so you know it's it's not my fan you can hear some bugs happening outside that's good all right cool cool cool it's definitely

that but that's just that's just because of the the crisp This microphone you're speaking on. This one just arrived in the mail. It was like some late Santa gift. Thank you very much. He was like, I'm going to get a USB mic. And I was like, ah, he's like dropping 25, 30 bucks on me. That's really nice. And this arrived.

Thank god for tax write-offs i appreciate you that's it yeah the closer you talk into it the better it the the sexier you sound all right that's that's what we want um and i was just going to say to your point as well you know yeah russell brand started as the the the joker you know the comic relief and now he you know his podcast is some of the most listened to you know for guidance and people recovering

or just you know the wisdom but even um chappelle now is is looked at as a similar platform as well. He's a griot, you know, he's a proper storyteller. What are your thoughts on that? You know, when people go from telling jokes to being preachy, you know what I mean? Like some of the George Carlin stuff in his later years, I think he did it the best. You know, I think that he was very educational, but also extremely funny about it because it's an observational comedy, for lack of a better word.

But, yeah, it's, you know, it's interesting when people go from being the everyday day to being entirely enormous where they're making tens of millions of dollars and you know they we can still relate to them in that that way you know it's like they are they have a different reality don't you think at that level of stardom and wealth they do and i yeah it's this concept where you eventually realize that all the money is not the answer right i was merely trying to fill

a void that was actually the absence of god and i thought i could fill it with fame recognition recognition, validation, wealth, belongings, exuberant trips. Whereas in reality, none of that is a solid filler for this space. You can only feel it from within. So I feel a lot of people come out of that. Jim Carrey did that and he's therefore had some spiritual awakenings.

He's worked his way from the comedic scene into becoming some kind of almost like a spiritually guided soul who really sees life a little bit more for what it is and how vacuous the quest quest for fame and its actual reality is. And then amid all of that, sometimes your ego is still going to poke through. There's going to be resistances. So maybe that's where the preachiness will come through on some points.

People are a little bit bitter that they were misled themselves and they want to let others know. I remember this from 18 years old and reading The God Delusion by Richard Dawkins and then felt I was so lied to by my upbringings that that I wanted to let everybody know that this is a scam, this is a fix. And then we, of course, throw the baby out with the bath water and realize actually there's some really great essences and brilliance within those belief structures.

So don't chuck it all away. Just look at it through a new lens. I hope not to get too preachy, mate, at some point in life. I would say Steve Harvey is one of those guys as well.

He runs a game show on TV, but he's got some of the best motivational pieces of content out there online. All right. Tell us, you know who you don't see switching to doing that is magicians. You don't see Copperfield being like, I've lived a big life and now I've realized life is the illusion. You don't hear any talks like that. So bring it back to magic, bro. What is your like relationship with magic right now? And like, what is, what are you noticing with magicians?

Cause we, we talked about a couple of things backstage that we could sort of dive into, but. Sure. For sure. I guess, um, I get the delicately like find the right balance here. I don't want to upset or insult. This is, this is, this is art, man. Yeah, man. You got to risk like upsetting people, dude. Otherwise you're not pushing the boundaries. Don't, don't, don't, don't. Don't push him too far. There was a caveat to the phrase I was going into,

but it's all good. We've got freedom to say what we want. And you can DM me, man. You can find my address on Google. I'm really easy to find. Come and knock on my door if I have something to say. And it's not like this is live or anything. So we're good. It's not like this is live. Yeah, if I get doxxed right now, someone swats me right now, I'll be happy with it. It'll be great. I've got another story to rattle on about, one of my overpaid

talks. It'd be awesome. So here's what we're going to try. So my beef with magic, I dropped the name magician from my titles last year. I put it back in this year, but I spent a year without it. And I had to distance myself from it. I think many of our journeys in life can be like a pendulum. We sway to one side and then we reject that and perhaps go back here.

And then eventually we find some middle ground. And this oscillation is permanently happening for anybody who's sensitive to their environment and their output. So in that, I wanted to shed it. And here's what's strange. When I first got into magic, I remember people, I wanted to tell people what I did, but I felt ashamed to say magician.

Not because magician was geeky or nerdy or awkward, but because I felt like I didn't have the skillset or the, like it's a big, bold claim to say you're a magician. Right. And I didn't feel like I had what it takes to back up such a bold claim. So I'd be a little meek in my, in my exclamation of, oh, I'm a magician.

Because people are going to be like oh yeah like what show me and then it gets to a certain point where I could just deadpan people in the face and say yes I'm a magician and the confidence would come through my phrasing so it was that they believed it and they knew it and then we started to reach the point where I felt magic as a label was too containing for what I was capable of because magic now has become saturated by at least within my own experience I can't speak for everybody else's but

like the amount of products that are coming out and all these downloads and how accessible it is which is beautiful in many ways but also that dilutes the potency of a magician it means that anybody with a youtube account anybody who can download a few bits can be going out there and calling themselves a magician and doing that and by all means i was that person for many years so like more power to you if you're pushing in that direction but it it felt harder and harder to associate myself

with that because I felt like a true magician is someone who is capable of great transformation and someone who is inspiring others to undergo transformation. And in traditional societies, the way that life as humans would have been lived for tens, if not hundreds of thousands of years before our modern boom in the last few decades or, our recent history, magic and the magician was a true kind of belief system that operated within the cultural operating system.

And it worked. The word abracadabra, 2,000 years old, as we speak, we create. They understood the power of words back then. And now people say any old nonsense without any real attachment to the consequence of what it is that they speak into action.

So as a magician i feel that we have a greater power and a greater responsibility we're going to go all spider-man's uncle here you know great power with great power comes great responsibility but for sure and it's not just this commodity it's not just some cheap tricks and thrills it's not the top hat and rabbit cliche the the awkward kind of performing 80s style magician that we look back on sometimes and we think all right that's rather antiquated.

It's in essence i feel that magic has been dissolved over time yeah well it's interesting you make a lot a lot of interesting points there and the one thing i want to explore with you is we're talking about with regards to confidence and i think that where i see magicians going wrong is where they build all of their confidence based on them being a magician like it's all, built into that, you know, and so without magic, they don't have the confidence at all.

You clearly had confidence leading into this, which is great. You know what I mean? Like you're, you're a perfect example of what can be achieved with, with confidence in yourself. Right. And, and, you know, I think having strength and confidence to do something before you're actually good at it is brilliant. Right. And you're an example of that. I feel that when magicians.

Predicate their entire personalities and their confidence by being a magician that's where they can go wrong and that's where magic in itself turns a little toxic because what they'll do is they'll start learning material stealing material claiming it as their own swearing till they're blue and black in the face no no this is original piece when in actual fact you read it from a book or you copied it from lennox green or whoever

it might be and i think that's where that goes wrong What advice do you have for folks who are either lacking confidence to start doing magic or predicate all their confidence into being a magician? I would say firstly, steal away, steal away. Maybe don't claim it as your own, but steal away. There are no original ideas. And even my own ideas, like my book, I didn't copyright my book deliberately.

I've got a backstory in piracy. When I was in my teens, I was partly responsible for a big counterfeit operation situation that my father subsequently was punished for and went to jail for when I was 20. So out of some kind of like karma, I felt too ill in myself to go and copyright my material. Why would I? And ultimately, if you've got a great idea and someone wants to steal it, let them have it, right?

I see people that I know, people I've hung out with doing versions of my routine, stuff I've developed by accident. Like a few of my beautiful routines are mistakes I've made or errors that have happened and in the moment my improvisation has then generated a new way of doing things and then i'll see them brazenly doing it and filming it and uploading it and.

Part of me wants to be like that's mine another part of me thinks awesome i didn't even have to be there and my routine blew some minds hell yeah like uh whatever like is it mine no could i try and attach my name to it sure but that's just the ego again i don't care like go out there steal my shit if you can do it better than me then yeah good on you yeah it is nice to be an influence we have a question from ed and it says here adam who do you credit with building your confidence

to the point where it is now. Love it. All right. Nice question, Ed. I guess my confidence will oscillate just like the pendulum I was speaking about earlier. I do have that imposter syndrome kicking in so often. But that self critique is an important part of it. And I feel really it's just about like knowing who you are doing the things that you need to do each day.

Like every day now I get up, I do a 35 minute meditation that was invented by the CIA in the 70s in attempts to create a connection between remote viewing. So we can shift that consciousness to other places. is. I'm like four weeks deep into this now. So either way, it's a beautiful experience to keep my eyes off of my phone in the morning. And then I'll do like 25 minutes, high intensity workout, five, five minute rounds.

And those things at the beginning, give me at least an acknowledgement I've achieved something that I had to do that perhaps I didn't want to do. And that will give confidence straight away. So discipline in some regard. Yeah. It's also, it's also worth pointing I'm pointing out that Alex is Adam. Why am I saying Alex? It's that remote viewing coming through. You you've been channeling someone else.

Adam is also a master in Krav Maga. So he also has confidence that like if someone heckles him, he'll just like, he could, you know, he can handle any, any mofo that, that comes at him is what I'm saying.

Good point actually, mate. Yeah. I would say anybody, anybody who's going to be standing in front of people and delivering at some point, get into some physical combat situation. It could be something as gentle as jujitsu where you're not going to be impacted in the same way, but still feel the connection with someone and learn how to be a killer. And with Krav Maga, of course, it's as aligned with magic as possible.

It's about rule breaking and dissolving those boundaries between what you should and shouldn't do, but in the moment where it counts. So those things definitely help. You can just stand there and know, I know what my physical limits are and I know what my capabilities are. And hopefully those never have to be brought into reality. But knowing it is definitely another comfort. I'm glad you brought that up, Josh.

Definitely. Definitely like, you know, you hope you never have to use it, but just knowing you have that knowledge is going to put you at ease for sure. A hundred percent. Yeah. Yeah. I used to spend an hour in the cage every Saturday and that just reminding like how brutalized you get. I was just doing two minute rounds, one minute off, but like that would just the full on MMA-ness of it would just be, yeah, a beautiful reminder that you can always get back up.

You can always do more and you're invincible because you come out with a little bit of a limp at the end of it but you're still standing and you've got a gig later and no black eyes let's go i think you just described like the december christmas season that's you come out with a limp black eye by the end of it well it's funny you say that gentlemen because i mean my roving sets in my residencies go for three hours and i have people say to me like there is no way i could perform for three

hours straight i would be exhausted and i'm like i'll do two or three for a day. It doesn't bother me one bit. But then again, like I'm someone who doesn't drink a lot, you know, if at all, you know, during the week, I am someone who keeps his sugar to a minimum and I focus on my cardio. You know what I mean? Like, it's just, you know,

Yeah. I mean, I'm trying to, I'm trying to get to Josh Nebedo status where my arms are so big that I have to work out every day in order to be strong enough to actually raise them. You have to feed them. You have to feed them. Josh's arm weigh like 40 kilos alone. They're so big. It's just like, yeah, stop it to you. Well, I shaved my head to, I, I shaved my head to be more like Nick K. So, you know, we're all winners here. Um, so Adam and I, we went out and did some street magic.

This man this must have been like two years ago now but what was really interesting was seeing how different so we performed for the same group but we both got very different responses from the same group which is really interesting i would say as working professionals we both did very high level magic but like i would say mine had them like maybe laughing more because i was trying to sort of improv off what they were saying then the magic would hit whereas alex had them like

Like you could hear a pin drop. What I keep saying, Alex, I'm combining. This is so weird. I don't know why. Where's Alex? Anyway, anyway,

anyway, you could hear a pin drop when Adam's performing to them. Yeah. And they were, yeah, they were in awe and they were like watching, they were watching real magic when they were watching Adam is how, like I would describe the way they're watching it.

And it was really interesting to watch that. and like what do you think magicians think of magic like how is magic being used no good question you said the buzzword right there real magic i know i was scrolling through i was doing one of my obliquatory scroll holes the other day and i scrolled past magicians only group on facebook and one of the posts was something about real magic and people asking does real magic exist and they get asked a lot and i was just seeing like

an endless list of people commenting on the the magicians only group being like no shut it down kind of this is nonsense like not having any space or time for that and this is a difficult topic for many because here's here's where we're at right i could look at you nick josh and see you as i could see you as human beings i could see you as as young males i could then see you as like performers or friends or partners for those those sons and, you know,

brothers and sisters, whatever it is that you have as your roles in life, then you've got like your belief structures, if I dive deeper into that. And then I could start looking at you as like the mechanisms of your functioning organs. And then I could look as the cells that make those things up.

All of these individual little life forces that seem to operate as a tiny pixel in the greater picture of things and then we can go deeper into the cell and then there are atoms and beneath that there is something else and perhaps deeper than that there is a soul the collective aggregate of our behaviors and character across time right so the more deep we dive the more magical it becomes as opposed to just a stranger you walk past

in the street or a person who whizzes into the group on his skateboard at Melbourne Magic Fest or someone who pops up on my feed at the right times and I see his work in regards to you, Josh. So it's like we overlook the magic that is because there is so much to take in. Buddha said to be enlightened is to live in a state of permanent wonder, but to be in a state of permanent wonder is exhausting. So naturally we become desensitized to the wonders around us.

And it's difficult to look into somebody and see the beauty and the magic that they are and the magic of this existence. We are made of atoms forged in the furnace of dying stars. That is miraculous. Yet we want to be as a magician and preach that magic isn't real to other magicians.

I'm like, bro, you live in an actual miracle, whether you want to call it a big bang or if you want to call it a God or divine intervention or some kind of creation, whatever it is there's a miracle at the start right and somehow we want to then just surrender all of the magic and all of the miracles to the beginning of the story yet everything else only exists within the confines of our physics knowledge and that is a little bit restrictive in thinking

especially as someone who is hoping to inspire the impossible so i believe in real magic i've experienced real magic and it is elusive and mercurial and you cannot grasp it But when it happens, it is very real and it's there. And I feel sorry for anyone, magician or not, who doesn't get to experience that poetic magic of life and recognize it for what it actually is. Can you speak on what's like a time you've really created real magic for someone?

Like, is there a time like, you know, we talk about, oh, maybe we made someone cry or something. But do you have like, is there one of those stories that just hits you from when you've been performing? And I'll also say as well, I would say Ben Earl is one of the guys that really advocates real magic as well. Like when you see him performing, like the stuff he does just looks like, although he's like the king of sleight of hand, he's gone to a level now where it just looks like he's.

Making things go from here to here or knowing what you're thinking or man we should get him as well but he's got a yeah no for sure he'll be a great guest he's done a good job at taking like simplicity and elevating it to more of a profound level and sometimes that's what it takes it's the foundations you know going back to the combat sports often it's just the foundations of your your one two and whatever your follow-ups are that that's what ultimately wins you the moment a

lot of the time the flashy stuff is great but it's fallible nick what's up bro well you know the interesting thing is that i think that to be able to have the effect that you do is to ultimately create a connection with your spectator or spectators and it can be quite difficult to do that depending on your environment don't you think uh yeah yeah the grand group totally what what's the set like yeah yeah so like you could be in a situation where they

are one table of of 50 tables at a large scale event. And, you know, you've only got six minutes on each table before you got to press on to the next one to ensure you've done your job. And it's sometimes difficult to create a heavy connection with people in that time. It can be done. And I have done it like, you know, I do it regularly. Right. But the connections aren't always so deep.

Sometimes, you know, if, if we're an ocean, sometimes you just wet your ankles and sometimes you're in in your head and they are hugging and kissing you as you leave it does change to the depth that you can reach somebody would you say it's like what comes to mind is like private parties like house parties and then maybe like the end of the night of like a conference when it's like that table that's just there to consume whatever you want to give i find like they're like the most.

Impactful, but I still want to hear, like, I'm sure Adam's got some stories where people have like called you the next day where they're like, I can't stop thinking about X and Y or something. Cause even when I saw you perform the people at the end, like you had this great line where you're like, I won't, you know, explain the effect, but you just look at them and you're like, tell me what time it is. And I'll tell you where you're going.

And it's just like, it hits them and they're like, Oh shit.

And then you do tell them and it's insane. yeah no that's my time and place routine i get people to think of a place they want to go to and then i say to them tell me what time you fly i'll tell you where you're going and they say it and i'm like really was that free choice i show them my watch and my watch matches that time which is their first beat and then i'm so many steps ahead and they're already like what the hell i know i well i told you i'll tell you where you're going we've

got that side right so yeah there was something quite visceral and i enter my groups now believing that i can can deliver a taste of genuine magic and and i hold that space there and i don't come in as a weirdo doing that i mean no more weird than i already am yeah but like i'll come in and i try to get past the like you know like i've got neighbors i've been living here for seven months at this spot right and i've got neighbors i haven't really conversed with but

every time i see them it's just like oh hi how are you okay how are you it's like this high pitch kind of. Conversation like what's that so like my job right is to cut past that superficial nonsense as quickly as possible. And when I get into a group, I'll just be real me and like, yo, like just cut straight to it. I don't have time for those pleasantries. Like, you know, I'll be pleasant, but try to overcome that hurdle. And when you do, you just drop straight in, then you're like part of it.

And I just treat it like it's just another group of mates or, or some people I'm just gonna have a nice time with. Like, I don't know if you've chatted to people at the bus stop sometimes, or when you're on the way home from a night out, sometimes you can bump into strangers and just just become best mates with them for five minutes outside of a food takeout or something.

Yeah. So like they're the kind of interactions I want to generate with people, even if it's a corporate event, because every single person is like just a real human beneath all of the facade of their role and their suit, their behavior for the night. So you can cut through that and get straight to the person. And often people are really into wacky stuff and they're entertaining it in their their spare time.

They're probably doing similar things to what some of us will be doing, you know, outside of the magic, same shows, same podcasts, same kind of activities, ice baths, Wim Hof breathing, whatever it is, you'll find a connection. Someone else has a taste of magic that they are dipping into in some capacity. So yeah, we're all the same in some way. You just got to like show them the gateways to access these other ways of thinking and perceiving.

But yeah, when you're talking about like genuine, I get comments of people saying, one person said, wow, that was absolutely transformative. And I was like, brilliant. Cause that was like my buzzword at the time. People, I just don't know what to make of it. One woman come up to me, bless her. She was pretty in her fifties, really polite Indian woman. And after this gig and she approached me like quite delicately and just said many years ago, she put something down that she cared deeply about.

And tonight I reminded her that it was safe to pick it up again.

And i was like yo yes man none of that i really like it when you vanish the thing you know none of that it's none of that it's about the magic my magic is just a conduit for the deeper potential and i think the real magic is our ability to transform our situation internally and then subsequently that will radiate outwards to make a bigger difference in the world around us so if i can stimulate that and be the catalyst that helps push people through their own transformative process same as

the people nicking my tricks posting them on ig like yeah do it man like more people rippling on from this the better like i'm just part of i'm just a messenger here too you know the message not my own and i'm very happy to be delivering it yeah and i just feel like a piece of shit now listening to listening to those feedback words isn't that like in the best way.

It's like i'm just like like oh fuck like that's so much better than hearing while the ex went from their hand to my hand like he spewed the cards out of his mouth like like that's great but to hear like that's transformative or you know that kind of thing is like someone said oh i just want to thank you for like the deeply inspiring night for the first time in months i slept through the night work stress aside you really relayed some powerful And like,

normally if someone said that he fell asleep after your show, you might do that. But this was like, so there was a liberation that happened and this is the potential power. This is the poetry that can come from the magic, right? I mean, getting some poetics in a little bit, but it's like the ability to lift somebody out. The magic is a, is the power. It's like packaging for something else, right? And I would often say like drop their jaws in astonishment and then shovel in the good stuff,

right? It's like, like it's a Trojan horse. So sure, I can do some cool predictions and some beautiful little moments and turn the spectator into a magician herself. That's awesome. Yeah, I like the comment here. Let's juggle in more stories. Yeah, yeah, for sure. For sure. And like the magic can be a story itself. The way I present Gypsy Fred, one of the first things I learned, you know, I love it because it's just one of the most beautiful, clean looking things that's so simple.

And I can carry it around as a spool of a thread. And it's one of the only like magic-y things that I do. Everything else is quite like real. People could say that I did it, whereas, you know, I'm using whatever techniques, but with that, you know, it's magic. But I'll use that as a storytelling piece and explain how, as we unravel the thread, so much of our storytelling revolves around this stuff.

We would spin a yarn we unravel a message thread we stitch our words together we weave our meanings we string people along and i'll be plucking bits of the cord off and handing them to individual members of the group and then explaining that the real magic comes when we are together so we cheers our pieces and then i collect them explaining that the best stories are the ones that tell themselves and then we restore the moment and i tie it on as a wrist bracelet and And it's beautiful.

But the fact that it tells the story itself, and I'm even narrating the fact that it tells itself.

So they've got something to hang on to. It's like he pulled it apart and explained this. And anyway, anyway, it's pretty. And people are left with an enchantment that is something that we can only synthesize in a few ways. People can do it with music. People can do it with poetry, storytelling, some kind of expressive mime act. It's like, there's only a few ways we can elicit that feeling in people.

And I can, I can add onto that just quickly. Like I, you'd rejuggle my, my memory here, like an example of what Adam does and what, you know, we're not just talking about because he's our guest, like he is something else that, you know, you got to go and see a show or get his book or, or, you know, wherever you can consume Adam and call him Alex when you see him in person. But there was a line that really made it clear, like what you're doing.

And it was when you revealed the, we did that routine, the time and place. And I know you say it all the time, but for me, it's the, I don't hear anyone else do this, but in once you revealed where they're going. So Adam's revealed the place they wrote down because he's asked them, like, if you could go anywhere in the world, where would you love to go? And then once you reveal it, because you had them like write it down and hide it.

He goes, like the first, like I'm going to butcher this, but the first step to any goal is to write it down. So your journey's already begun and then hands them the thing. And everyone, it hits people in that moment and they're just like, oh, so really. And it's like, you haven't just done a trick. What you've really just done is made them commit to going to the place they've always wanted to go. Adam, it's bullshit what you're doing here.

It's like a full-on scene right i get someone to think of something they want to do visualize their journey going there i've revealed the time so we're one step closer they're questioning like the fabric of reality because they've just named this time and it matches the watch and if you've caught a glimpse unconsciously of what my watch was set to what could i pick up consciously about this place you're thinking of focus on it think about it and i want you to imagine you're on your

way there and as they touch down imagine that and they welcome you and they say and they say they They say, they say, Konnichiwa, welcome to Tokyo. And people just melt. That's right. Yeah. You even say the language of where they're going. Yeah. I've got a dozen or so in the bank and, you know, so that happens. And then of course the final bit would be like, oh, well, the first steps was making anything happen is to write it down. So your trip's already begun.

And if there's an awkward moment and then I might be like, and your flight leaves at seven tens to get a wriggle on, you know, it's like, I still dissipate the, the, the feeling.

In but yeah yeah that's it i guess it's really beautiful to hear it from you because i don't get much of a litmus test and i i deliberately don't hang with too many magicians and it's it's nice to hear other people who are outstanding at what they do i have so much respect and admiration for both of your placement in this in this magical world and like your experience like what you get up to i aspire to have the i want to say accolades but like yeah i guess like

the internal accolades that you seem to have achieved there's lots that you've got that i would like to aspire to be like as time goes on i'm 10 years deep here so i'll catch it up well you know in the same breath friend i mean i know you're only 10 years deep but you are inspiring so many magicians around you including myself you know and and our chat is like on fire now with the amount of wisdom that you're dispensing you know thank you so very

much because it seems to me like you also have this his propensity to want to have these experiences even with strangers and we have some questions like where can we see your performances but there's one other question here that I want to put forward as well which is do you do this on on a kind of regular basis because Ed was asking is the majority of your magic prop-less?

I like to like go out with little bits as I can. So like a stack of business card, my watch, my phone, 10 cent coin, and I do a really beautiful equivocate. So like, actually, this is something that I'm happy to give away right now because yet again, whatever, is it really my idea? Propless as much, but no, there is always something, perhaps not always, but there's something involved. The beauty is when you dip into these conversations, I think I've got a plane crashing into the building.

So about that. Oh, we can hear that. Yeah, this is all a buildup. If you feel like holding the mic closer to you, it should focus more on you and less on you. You're not going to believe it. It was on its way to Tokyo at exactly 7.10pm. Yeah. Yes, mate.

I love it, man. I need a new producer. I don't have a producer, so yeah, please jump on. There's an open role. Let's collaborate. Bob Possible's going to email you straight after this. One of our avid listeners. I would say, I would say one thing, but sorry to interrupt again. I just can't help it. One thing I would say with you, Adam, is one thing is like, everyone's only just getting a real taste of you now.

Cause you don't really put yourself in the magician world for magicians to sort of soak up Adam Axford. Like, is that, is that from like your experience growing up where it's like, cause I think we've talked about this too. Like you didn't really feel like doing a lot of public performances where people could buy a ticket because it feels like your relationship with magicians was they want to see what they can do.

Maybe take from your show or something as opposed to like, yeah, they're not the people I'm trying to, you know, these magicians who don't believe in magic, they're not the ones I'm trying to do magic for. Right. Like they already know it all. What do I want to tell them? You know, but then you have to occasionally, right. But here's the deal. I grew up working on a market store from a young age and I believe I've developed the fundamental, like people skills dealing with crowds and swindling.

Like it was East London and all across London and we were were selling stuff that we shouldn't be selling so everything was just this world of like late night meets in car parks across the city and like packaging things up and rebranding things are certain things I would cruise around in my first car with boxes of fake Tiffany jewelry in the back and I'd stop at like cafes and hair salons and stop and chit chat to the women

there and go in and I was like fresh young lad and I've been I've got these bits and pieces I've been We sell Tiffany necklaces and bits for $35 for the £35 for the bracelet and the necklace together. And anyway, like I'm just making shreds on this, but these were bits I was actually up to. And I did this stuff for years. And I bought my first BMW by selling like fake polo Lacoste at the boot of my Escort. And then I bought my second BMW, which is a convertible free series, right?

I bought this by selling copied sunglasses on eBay, right? And this is so far, I'm 38. I was 20 at this time.

2021 so way beyond statute of limitations and i sold so many of them at 55 60 pound per go for these chanel glasses that were such good copies i would sell them as real at the time right and i realized there's ethical issues here okay so like feel free like throw rocks at me wherever i've evolved since then this was half my life ago but during this time i have developed beautiful ways of selling people illusions people know what they buy and they don't think it's something else you You know,

they're just getting a loophole to access the thing and the experience and the status of the purchase without having to earn the money required and spend it. So I was doing a service and then I realized that I've been set in illusions

all my life and now I'm still selling them. And at least it's more ethically aligned now. And it's more generative for positive change and transformation rather than some knockoff commodities. But that was always there. So when I see like other magicians who develop in whatever way, some people, they played poker for a little while and now they're a magician, ta-da, and some people, they had a magic set at seven and they've always loved it.

And some people worked in finance and now I'm a magician.

Awesome like find your lane man be true to you like i grew up working on a market stall dealing with real stuff selling things i shouldn't dad went to jail was forced to figure it out changed my setup changed my attitude to life did an nlp course with richard bandler who co-founded nlp started doing hypnosis sessions at 22 22 23 i was helping people with smoking and weight loss in a gym i had no creditations i'd literally done a course for a week and a

one-day hypnosis thing and read books and books in Starbucks, right? Just absorbing this. And I went out there and I was curing people of smoking. I was helping people with their issues. And it was amazing just with words and a whole lot of confidence, right?

So those were the magic. And then eventually realizing that by performing, I could affect more people quicker in at the bus stop or at the chicken shop or wherever it is, you can just meet people and blow them away and affect and transform them in more of a disarming way. They don't have to come to you in some therapy room with their vulnerability. Wearing a heart on their sleeve, you know? I went on a big old tangent there, but I guess what I'm saying is there's a whole lot of vanilla in magic.

Tap into your grit. I met up with a girl recently who had just come from a show. She saw a magician do a show. She was friends with said magician.

And she said, he did a good job. I've got to respect it, but I just wish there was some kind of grit, some kind of something in him and his show and and i get that it's all a lot of vanilla people don't want to offend it's all so safe these days like push the edges man yeah well that i mean that's why i'm saying like you know we you we can see this view right so why not take the other approach whereas if you do put yourself out there and like imagine if in a perfect world you can help.

You know, 50 more magicians actually start creating real magic and now there's, you know, that's blossoming to kind of, it's never going to completely change it, but don't you think there's a, another place where you could go the other route and fully immerse yourself in, in, I guess, putting more of Adam, the Adam juice out there for magicians to be like. Oh, there is this way of, of performing.

Performing yeah like tonight i'm going to an open mic poetry night i like to i essentially i've been combining like slam poetry type rhymes free flow like improvised kind of rhyme structures themed that link into the trick right so i've got this bit before i do a piece on language and its ambiguity to being a tool for influencing our future it's kind of an equivocate piece i lead in with i can share the piece with you i've got can i share it with you it's like 90 seconds this

nah too long no kidding please do all right well let me see if i remember it but essentially i was reading lewis carroll the other day right and then lewis carroll it says you should say what you mean and mean what you say but what meaning of the word mean does that mean is that mean as in average or is it the savage kind of mean as in cruel because i learned both of those meanings at school i was a pupil like the middle of an eye and if you look at i as a word in the middle is a why and why is

a question why do our words perform this direction if i say that our language is flawed is that floor like the ground and is that grounds like beef i buy by the pound is that pounds like the currency i earn and earn is a jar a jar like a door a door means to love and like the coastline i am sure i am sure i love language language is my love language but how many Many of us can honestly say that we actually understand it. So I try to make sense like change for a dollar.

And I try to take notes like cash payments. I try to stay present like gifts with a bow. And I try to stay current like raisins. But every time I try to make my point like decimal, the meaning is somewhat questionable. So I try to stay patient like I'm at the doctor's. But wait, wait could mean heavier light. Light could mean radiantly bright. Bright can mean smart, like the opposite of casual. We casually learn to speak without picking up a manual.

Manual. I'm driven to say that it's fine, but what meaning of fine do I mean? Is that fine as in okay, fine as in attractive, fine as in intricate, or a fine like the outcome of a bill we don't pay? There is no way that we can say what we mean and mean what we say, and I need a resolution like New Year's Day in 4K. After I go in, thank you. So after I go in, there's one of these on ambiguous words and their multiplicity of meanings.

I'll then do an equivocate piece using precise tools that I've just highlighted and then and get to some beautiful moments. So I got a few snaps in the comments. Yes, yes, yes. And I've seen that has to be worthy of a like and share. Yes, Jason.

Hell yeah. Hell yeah. All right. love love love it all right cheers boys thank you a little wacky creations from my brain that's feel magical and there are ways that we can get people to feel magic without doing the tricks yeah more importantly how's your spongebob routine.

Yeah all right mate yeah cheers that's good that's good so so yeah so what um so this year what uh is your focus with gigs or shows are you trying to do less like roving gigs for example and more more on stage speaking or are you trying to keep a mix what do you what do you actually enjoy, i've got two keynotes in february and like i'm stoked with that i'd want like a keynote or two a month that'd be brilliant and then the rest if it falls and lands i'll do a birthday party here or there

i'll do some corporate roving i really like i'm happy at the moment to not work loads because i've had times in the last few years where i was quite busy and like nick doing three four four gigs a day. And I've kind of moved away on that in my focus. And I'm trying to work on like a higher quality and a lower quantity of, just for my own wellbeing and just trying to find a little bit of a balance and not be so wired into it.

I want to enjoy my day to day and be at peace with myself and like my bigger story. I'm 38 and my story is just beginning. I'm going to be 138 by the time we get all of our bionic upgrade. We're just kicking this story off, mate. We're in like chapter three. So yeah, I want to enjoy that. But what actually I've got goals to, I went to a, I feel like I may Mayfair drug screen after absorbing Adam's knowledge. Boom. Yes. All right. You know what's up. You can add that to the reviews. Yeah.

Watch it. My shows may shoot a failure drug test. I like it. It's all right. They can't test for this stuff. It's all good. It's all good. Yeah. Do not Axford and drive. Yeah. If you're driving, please pull over.

Yes. And you will pull out your credit card and send it to.

There we go yeah yeah so if anyone wants oh i've got a few bits as well wisdom anyone wants to dm me i've got two shows which have been an absolute integral creative catalyst for me like tv shows but they're not that well known but they're brilliant and i don't want to go in and speak them up on the pod but if anybody is intrigued enough and wants to ask then for sure you can inbox me i'm easy to find and then some people asked about like where can they see

me perform i've been thinking about putting some old shows and just putting the full entirety up for people to see the whole show. I know you've got that online and I've got a lot of them from previous times and I might just put them out there and be like, yeah, this is antiquated now, but enjoy it for what it is. This was me three years ago or whatever. Well, let us know when you do that because we should organize a viewing party

with our audience. I think they would all love to get behind that and see what it's about. So, you know, keep us in the loop should you decide to do that. All right. And because I've noticed the thinking is if you put your stuff out there, now anyone can see it. Maybe it loses value. you maybe whatever whatever but but really it's the gary vaynerchuk is the one that that really.

Fired this synopsis off but like trying to put yourself out of business is what actually keeps excelling you forward and so like with my keynote for example the one i wrote i had a great recording of it and i didn't want to share it because i think oh then clients could just show this stuff that but really it's really about getting the information out there and that will help do that And I never not got a gig because someone had just watched it instead, you know.

Beautiful. Well, I want to wrap up. We've got like four minutes left. Yeah. So I want to wrap up. Last week, I had a week of wonder for the entire week. I focused on the six concepts that I share in my keynote show or struck. The purpose of this show is to help us reconnect with the magic of being help us find the magic in the everyday. day. So for each day, I focused on one of the six concepts that we explore in the show itself.

So on Monday, the focus was novelty. Novelty is the idea of newness, the idea of creating something truly new, something truly unique, contributing back into the immense pool of novelty that we take from every day. But novelty can also be as simple as looking at the things we we do every day through new lenses and noticing the wonder within that. Day two, I focused on authorship.

Authorship is our ability to impart our will upon the world by vocalizing our dreams, our hopes, our goals, our desires, and understanding that our language has a direct impression, a direct impact on the fabric of reality. So I actually spent that day doing a few authorship type things, including starting my citizenship application to finally become an an Australian after 10 years here. So a good step in the right direction.

Day three, gratitude, something that I can struggle with sharing often. I get so much gratitude at me from the work that I share. It's really nice to focus on this emotion and check in with the beauty of your life, the experiences, the people you have in your life. I caught up with an old friend that day. We played a game of chess. He kicked my ass and we went for a nice wander through the city.

We absorb the radiant beauty of this amazing city that I've been lucky enough to live in for so long and then we had a chicken wings for wing Wednesday at Rosie Campbell's Jamaican spot tier, Thursday. Thursday's focus was presence. When we are truly present, we are truly connected with the everything that is. There is no future. There is no past. The only thing that ever exists is this current moment in time. The nexus of space and time that you currently occupy is the only thing that exists.

So on this day, after a beautiful little sunrise session, I went for a flotation tank and a sauna and an ice-cold plunge, and then later on enjoyed sunset and a glass of wine with my partner. Friday was adventure. We went to Guatemala, which is this incredible waterfall, and it's got a lagoon and a big ocean beach, and we spent our day adventuring through off-grid, no phone signal, just embracing the adventure that is.

And last but not least saturday's focus was luck another way that we can synthesize magic in our own world is by looking out for luck and welcoming it in so i went to bondi and i went there with an intention of filming with a friend let's see if we can do some luck focus magic tricks with the people and it was so hot when we got there the idea of filming was so off-putting so we had a couple of spicy margaritas and changed our game plan and then a friend

who was in bondi just just messaged me out the blue. I thought that she had noticed me there and then. And she said, what are you up to? I was like, I'm in your town. Do you want to come for dinner? Yes. So we turn up to this restaurant, Peruvian restaurant that had just opened and they comped us a meal, right? So we had banquets of food coming out just by saying yes and YOLOing on this lucky trip. My plans have been canceled due to the weather.

I said yes and took the journey and luck was in our favor. And I had one of the best nights I've had in a while with a a couple of friends, free dinner. And we bought as many drinks to help out the restaurant as we could stomach. So yeah, that was a week of wonder. And during that time, genuine magic happened. I would love to talk about it, but I have a feeling we've run out of time. So you have to tune into my show at some point.

Yes i look that just means people have to keep following your stuff to to see you put out content about it absolutely i think it's so inspiring that if we just keep ourselves open to magic you know it's the same as keeping yourselves open to opportunity you know what i mean these are exactly what you're doing like if you it's the same if you would be walking about looking for red cars you'll see heaps of them if you just keep your eyes out for them keep your eyes out for the magic

so if you pay attention it's there yes the magic is there to be witnessed they say the world is filled with magical things patiently waiting for our senses to grow sharper so amen so before we end nick did you want to mention the review i wanted to mention yes speaking of magic that we'll just quick shout out to our sponsor piper magic this week we are reviewing tornado by peter egging for the sake of time we put the link in the description of this video you guys can scope it out it's a super

cool gimmick we can produce smoke from a pack of playing cards so by all means scope that one out and if you guys want to talk about it i will be chatting about that on the discord so we can go over anything else that you want to know about the product there yeah yeah all right so adam we do this thing at the end called the final word, you've you've given great drops of uh advice which could be you could use any one of them again but basically i'm going to play a little stinger and it's

going to cut to you in full screen. John says thanks alex that's awesome i'll play the stinger it's going to cut to you in full screen You give us whatever sentence or word or advice you want to leave everyone with, and then I'll hit the end outro when I see you finish there. But look, we want to thank you for coming on, man. And you can follow Adam. His Instagram link is in the description below. But you guys all have a wonderful week, and we'll see you next week.

Oh, here we are. This is the outro beast. This is the zinger, right? To wrap up with, uh, you know, Alan Watts said that you are something the ocean is doing. You want some, should I start that again? Can we wrap this? This is not live, is it? This is all good. Perfect. All right. Alan Watts said you are something the ocean is doing. I've lost it, mate. I think this is it. What is it? We're being on the spot. You know what? We're going to wrap it in. I appreciate the attention that people

put into their work. I love the way that creativity can permeate every single thing that we do. And the more that we can be truthful and honest to our own creative urges and realize that we are a conduit, a messenger. We are the ones who are put here to piece these things together and share them with the world. Sometimes it is going to be painful because we're going to bomb on stage.

Sometimes the ideas are going to suck and they're going to fail and people are going to let us know and take a whole lot of joy at laughing at us in our failures.

But the more you fail, the more you fall over and the more you train yourself to get back up, then the more impervious you become to that and you start stepping into the abilities of resisting the cultural pressures and saying what needs to be said doing what needs to be done and exploring territory and terrain that has never been explored before you can be the adventurer you can journey into the unknown and you can bring back the magic that you find there i hope that you've been

inspired from our little chat and i hope some of these nuggets of wisdom work their way into the magic you share with people i'm adam maxford thank you magic guys podcast it's been a beautiful time lots of love thanks for listening it's time for us to disappear now disappear now but we'll see you again on the next episode of the magic guys.