Mailbag #72: Mentalism for Strangers & Dealing With Nerves Speeding You Up
/In your monday mailbag 62, you spoke about approaching people using magic.
What are your ideas on approaching strangers to perform mentalism in social events or coffee shops? —JB
Short answer: I don't perform straight mentalism to actual "strangers" too often.
Long answer: Mentalism/mind-reading has the potential to turn people off or affect people in a way that you can’t always anticipate. This depends on what they’re bringing to the table and their understanding of this as “entertainment” vs this as some sort of “mind control” or something like that. I would want to feel them out a bit first before I go into mentalism.
The other issue is that straight mentalism is almost all “magician-centric,” it’s all about demonstrating your power. That’s an odd thing to do in most situations, but especially with strangers.
In general, if I had a trick I wanted to perform for someone I didn’t really know, and it had the potential to be interpreted as me affecting their mind or their thoughts or anything like that, I would reel that in a little bit.
I’d say something like, “Can I get your help with something? My friend showed me this interesting trick that sort of mimics mind reading and I’ve been wanting to try it out with someone I don’t know. “ So I’d frame the experience as “just a trick.”
Now, perhaps it goes over really well. If so, then I can probe a little bit with them and find out if maybe they’re interested in “something weirder.” But I wouldn’t come straight out with an “I’m going to read your mind,” type of presentation, outside of a more formal performance situation.
Do you have tip against being "nervous" when performing a trick.
I tend to hurry up (and actually "ruin" the effect).
Do you have any tips or book/article recommendations? —SD
I don't really have any tips for overcoming nerves, because I don't really have any nerves (at least not related to showing people magic tricks.)
I talked about nerves in these two posts:
https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2020/10/4/monday-mailbag-30
https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2021/11/7/monday-mailbag-57
But they might not address exactly your particular issue.
I also talk about "slowing down" briefly in this post
https://www.thejerx.com/blog/2021/7/11/wcxenokxys33dd44qa8v9t9emc9ec9
Here’s an idea… I’ve never tried it, but this is the type of thing I would try if I was struggling with nerves that were speeding me up.
I think you need to work on your internal metronome. So to practice that I would take a simple trick like the Invisible Deck or B’Wave or something like that. And then I would tell myself, “I’m going to show this to someone, but I won’t let myself get to the climax of the trick until 90 seconds in.” (Or two minutes, or whatever feels like a steady or even slow pace for you.)
You can literally just have your phone out and time it as you do it. You don’t need to tell people why. “Don’t worry about that. I’m just trying figure something out,” is all you need to say. If anything, it will add a little more mystery to what you’re showing them.
Then go through the trick. You will find yourself with two options. You can either force yourself to go at a leisurely pace. Or you can rush through and end up with 50 seconds of “dead time” at the end before you give yourself permission to reveal the climax. So you end up just sitting there waiting for the time to tick by and looking like a ding-dong. I would guess that having this time minimum as a focus will get you more comfortable with taking things at a slower pace. Eventually you won’t need this type of rule in place. But as a “training wheels” sort of exercise, I think it could help.
Speed kills reactions. It makes you seem uncomfortable, which will make the spectators uncomfortable. It also makes it seem like you’re apologizing for showing them the trick, “Just let me get this over with. Let me get you to the interesting part.” That is death when it comes to generating intrigue with people.