David Copperfield’s Unique Path Towards Mastery
The Following Story is from the ArmaniTalks Newsletter
A few years back, I went to Vegas.
The people I went to Vegas with each had 1 day where they were in charge of an event.
The day that I was in charge, I was going to take the group to David Copperfield’s magic show.
I eagerly booked the tickets.
And I eagerly waited for everything to go smoothly.
But a few days before the trip, news broke.
Copperfield was being accused of sexual misconduct.
This was possibly going to cancel his events.
I quickly looked for a replacement event.
But everything was either sold out or someone else from the group already booked it.
I didn’t know what to do.
2 days before my day, Copperfield’s show was back on.
He was going to perform as expected.
I kid you not…
His event exceeded expectations.
Copperfield makes the audience members put their phones in a compartment before he begins his show.
Which is a bummer because he had so many Snapchat-worthy moments.
2 moments stuck out.
The 1st moment was when he made a car disappear from the stage.
Which doesn’t seem like much.
Especially from a professional magician.
But what made that memory stick out was how he made the car disappear from stage and float right in front of my face!!
He turned off the lights before he made the car float.
Once the lights turned on, I was shocked to see a MASSIVE car, upside down, 18 inches away from my face.
There were no strings holding the car up.
Just a vehicle suspended in the air.
‘How was the car so close to my face and I didn’t even notice a breeze?’
The 2nd part that stood out was how he chose a person from my crew to be a part of his act.
The guy chosen was a skeptical person.
He thought Copperfield was full of shit.
So he was definitely going to try and pull a fast one on Copperfield.
I can’t recall the exact magic trick.
But I do recall the skeptical person walking back in defeat after the trick, with the face of:
‘How did he do that?’
After the trip, I did some research on Copperfield.
Was he the Harry Houdini of our time?
I discovered his net worth was a staggering 500 million.
That’s way more than I was expecting.
A few days ago, I checked again…
This time, he was a billionaire.
Copperfield quietly became a billionaire while incrementally getting great at 1 thing.
“Getting great at 1 thing” is a misleading phrase.
It makes the mind think:
‘What’s so difficult about that?’
But getting great at 1 thing is difficult indeed.
Because there are layers involved.
For example:
-Magic.
What other layers makeup magic?
You only pull a rabbit out the hat and call it a day, no?
No.
I’m sure at the beginning of Copperfield’s magic career, he needed people to watch him pull a rabbit out the hat.
So, he had to learn some basic marketing and selling.
Once people came, he had to actually pull the rabbit out the hat.
Which meant that he needed to be competent.
Not only that…
But people didn’t just want to see a rabbit being pulled out the hat.
They wanted to participate with the magician.
The audience members wanted the thrill of having one of them sawed in half.
-Now David had to get great at psychology and communication skills.
-He needed to work on his tonality to build suspense during his magic shows.
-He had to work on his observation skills to see which tricks inspired awe and which tricks were meh.
You get my point.
The process of getting great at 1 thing allowed Copperfield to become great at multiple things!
As Swami Vivekananda once said:
“Take up one idea. Make that one idea your life — think of it, dream of it, live on that idea. Let the brain, muscles, nerves, every part of your body, be full of that idea, and just leave every other idea alone. This is the way to success.”
For more short stories on mindset and mastery, be sure to sign up for the ArmaniTalks Newsletter!!
– ArmaniTalks 
