Going Two Levels Deep

“I used magic to…”

“I influenced you to...”

“I’m using the power of my mind to…”

These are all explanations of what you just did. How did this thing just occur?

Magic.

Influence.

Mind power.

What do people do with these sorts of explanations?

They forget them or ignore them.

They’re essentially meaningless.

But if you go another level deeper in the explanation, then you’ll have something that is much more arresting and meaningful and less likely to be dismissed completely.

Let’s take it outside the world of magic first.

Let’s say you buy your spouse some flowers. You come home and give her the flowers. “Why did you buy me flowers?” she asks.

“Well, because I love you,” you say.

That’s a nice gesture and a nice sentiment. But in this case, the explanation of “love” is like the explanation of “by magic.” It doesn’t necessarily carry a ton of meaning (assuming you’ve been with this person for many years and shown your love to them in 1000s of ways previously). In fact, the “love” explanation might carry so little weight that it makes them suspicious. What did he do that he’s bringing me flowers? Is he feeling guilty? Did he screw something up?

But if your partner says, “Why did you buy me flowers?” and you say:

“Well, because I love you. I was just thinking this morning, how lucky I am to have you in my life. It gives me the confidence to handle all the uncertain elements of my day, knowing that I have your love and support waiting for me when I get home.”

All you’ve done is gone another layer deep in why you love them, but you can see that it feels more believable. And is probably less likely to be questioned.

Some examples:

Magic

You put a red sponge ball in your fist.

“I’m going to make this sponge ball change from red to green by magic.” [Snaps Fingers.]

vs.

“I’m going to make this sponge ball change from red to green by magic.” You hold your empty hand above the closed one with the sponge ball inside. You slowly and with significant effort close your empty hand into a fist. “If I get this right, the magic will condense the wavelengths coming from the ball changing the color from red to blue, hopefully.” [Opens fist.] “Ah, green. Close enough.”

Influence

“The order in which I set the cards down influenced you to touch the 10 of clubs.”

vs

“I don’t want you to see this as a row of cards. I want you to imagine you're back in elementary school and this is a row of children, and you’re picking teams before some sport or game. I want you to try and actually see some of your classmates faces on these cards. I’m thinking this visualization will influence you to pick the card I want you to.”

Mind-Power

“By the power of my mind, I predicted you’d pick the 4 of Spades.”

vs

“We all have the ability to imagine different outcomes for certain events. But what I’ve found is a type of meditation that trains your mind to allow the incorrect outcomes to fade away from my consciousness. It’s complicated. But imagine I mediate on what card you’re going to pick. And in my mind, it’s like going down a hallway with 52 different doors off the hallway—each with a different card behind the door. But each time I mediate on this question, there are fewer and fewer doors. Until eventually, I query my mind, and I go down the hallway, and there’s just one door. The door to the card you’ll pick. Now, you could say I’m just deluding myself, and because I’m expecting the options to shrink, they do. But I did this process last week to know what card you’d pick, and the only door remaining led me to the 4 of Spades. What did you get?”

None of these examples actually “explain” what’s happening fully. There is still an element of mystery or magic in regard to what actually happened. But by going another level deeper into how this happened, you give the experience more substance and give the audience more to get caught up in.

“This happened because: magic.” You can’t even hope someone would entertain that premise because there’s so little there to consider.

It’s like asking someone, “Why did that war break out?” And the other person says, “Oh, anger.” Like, okay, we get it. But that doesn’t really give anyone anything to think about.

Going another level deep in your pseudo explanation gives them more to get tangled up in regarding what they just experienced. It’s the first step in a presentation that has the chance to capture their imagination.