3 ways Apple’s keynotes are like a magic show

A few days ago Apple held his annual WW DC. However, this year it was different due to COVID-19. This year it was pre-recorded and streamed. Despite that, I feel that they still had the same feeling that their live Apple Keynotes deliver. So how, you may be asking, is Apple‘s keynote like a magic show well let’s examine their show.

First, their show is well-rehearsed and well scripted. The best performers and the best magicians rehearse their shows until it is ingrained in the memory and write and rewrite scripts until they are flawless and get across their points. Apple’s writers do a great job of selling the products and services to those watching. The script is concise and on points. Everyone you see on stage knows where they need to be when they need to be there and rarely is it ever a mistake. Magicians spend hours rehearsing in front of a mirror, practicing in front of friends and family and then breaking in new material time and time again until it is perfected. For those of you out there, they give presentations, or sales pitches, or are you getting up in front of a group of investors, how well written is your script, if you even have one. How many times have you recorded yourself either on video or an audio and I’ve listened back to it to make sure it sounds good. Have you played the recordings for mentors and friends and family to see how they feel about it? Have you written the script to make sure it flows smoothly tells a story I can grasp the audience?

I feel that the best thing that Apple does journeys keynotes is it expires the consumer. Did your great job of telling the story of how well your life will be using your products and services. That’s how using their services and products you could be more creative, have an easier workflow, and be more productive. They sell aspiration. Magicians do the same thing is demonstrating things that are impossible so you the audience OK then dream of impossible things I know that perhaps they may be possible. Magicians try to inspire the audience and believe in impossible things. There are so many presentations I’ve seen with there is very little if any inspiring or aspiration designing them. If you’re trying to sell a product or service to a customer or maybe better be, are you able to have them envision themselves using the product and how easy or their life will be, can you tell that story.

Additionally, Apple does a great job of telling a story. As humans we love stories and we connect with them. Humans have stories that are hundreds and hundreds of years as a sole means of communicating. Apple just doesn’t tell the story just to fit the narrative, they take real-life examples and share them with the audience. People can tell the difference between made-up story windows perhaps written just for the presentation and a true-life story. Is there a story you can use to connect to your audience when giving your presentation, pitch, or lecture? Spending just a few minutes to develop a story can help to connect with your audience. Magicians use their tricks and props to help illustrate a story and hook the audience. If you get to see David Copperfield live, this point will completely resonate with you. The good magicians put in conflict, resolution, struggle, plot, etc… Are you telling a story in your presentation?

Abracadabra

Setting the stage

Some of you, at some point, will have to give a presentation, pitch an idea, or get up in front of a group of people. One of the greatest fears most propel have is public speaking. 

Some of the best magicians realize that the stage extends far beyond the platform they stand on. A magician just doesn’t show up to the venue and perform then go home. They get there early to check the sight lines, audio, lighting, the views and sound from sitting in the back row versus sitting in the front row versus how things look sitting on the side. How many of you, whenever you get ready to give a presentation or a training class, get there early and make sure the lighting is OK, or see how the presentation would look?

The stage extends far beyond more than just the platform the performer stands on. To enhance the performance of the entertainer on stage, the experience begins as you enter the theater or the boardroom. It begins when you buy your tickets to the show or in your case, when you email out requesting a meeting, or when you send out the calendar invite. If you were to go see a Metallica concert or a Norah Jones concert, you would automatically tell that there’s a difference just by the way the stage is set. When people are getting ready to see your presentation or to hear your pitch, can they tell what kind of presentation this is going to be?

Before Apple’s WWDC it sends out invintations to a select few. There is press about what could possibly be in the keynote. And when you watch it, you see a well rehearsed keynote with the audio visual having been meticulously rehearsed.

While you may not be giving an Apple Keynote are you still giving your participants the same experience and level of dedication and attention. Set the stage to have them expect the type of meeting, training, or pitch you want them to have.

Abracadabra.

What the magician can teach us

As young children, we are inspired, and in awe by this person that can do seemingly incredible amazing things. For some reason, as we get older, those impossibilities turn into tricks for us to figure out and the magician is just a normal person with no special powers. The wonder of impossibilities gets lost as we get older. However, to be a magician we must continuously think of new and impossible things. We must use the tools around us in a way for the skeptics to again have that childlike wonder.  

The magicians catchphrase abracadabra translates to “I create as I speak, “which means that the real magic comes from within the magician. The magician thinks about what the outcome is and focuses energy through the wand and makes it happen. We all have the ability within us to make what we want to happen. It starts with a thought and a plan to bring the dream to action. We all have magical abilities inside of us if we learn how to focus them. The magician gets an idea than through the creative process and finds a way to make the impossible possible. Many of us have projects or obstacles that seem impossible to complete. Some of us want to be high achievers, high earners, for the top in our field, and those goals seem unattainable. If a magician to make the Statue of Liberty disappear, can make a card that you picked and sign appear outside a window or tell you what you were thinking, then your goals are not impossible.

My goal is to teach you the techniques ideas and theories that magicians use to bring their crazy ideas to life so that you can use them to accomplish your own goals. Making your impossible projects dreams possible and to help you be more profitable, increase your sales, or maybe just get through a home project is my goal. You may be using some of these ideas and techniques are ready without even realizing it. Remember, the real power with magician lies within the tools around him, just helps to focus his energy on what he wants to accomplish.