Transcriber: Helene Batt Reviewer: Reiko Bovee
I am a magician for over 45 years.
When I was 23 years old,
I met former US presidential candidate Ross Perot,
and I ended up working for him for 10 years.
Ross made me promise that I'd figure out a way
to integrate magic and business,
and I've been working at that for the last 30 years.
So tonight, I'm here to share with you, one of the greatest secrets
that I discovered on that 30-year journey.
Tonight we're going to pull back the curtain
and I'm going share with you one of magic's greatest secrets.
This is so secret that most magicians don't know it.
This is a real treasure to me.
When I first discovered it, I didn't want to share it with anyone.
Seriously, I wanted to keep it for myself,
but it had such a big impact on my life,
and as I started to share it with other people,
people were telling me how it was impacting them.
So, It's clearly one of those ideas worth sharing,
and that's why I'm here tonight.
The secret is a magic word, that has transformational power.
In fact, it's the universal magic word, you all know it.
What's the universal magic word?
Abracadabra.
(Laughter)
"Please" is the very good magic word.
(Laughter)
And "thank you".
So, I never used the word "abracadabra" in my magic performances.
I thought it was goofy, some nonsense word.
But one day I was sitting and reflecting,
and I thought, "Where does abracadabra come from? What does it mean?"
So I started to do some research
which led me to the department of linguistics at MIT.
I sent an email,
and I had a follow-up phone conversation a couple days later.
One of the faculty called and said, "You aren't going to believe this."
"Abracadabra" is an Aramaic word.
I said, "What's Aramaic?"
He said Aramaic is an ancient sacred language that predates Hebrew.
Some people say Aramaic is the language that Jesus spoke.
He said,
"Hold on because you're never going to believe what abracadabra means."
It means:
"What I speak is what I create."
What I speak is what I create.
Let me give you an example of abracadabra in action.
We're going to start, "What I speak is what I create".
We have to begin with words.
So we're going to take a simple word.
The word "ball".
And let's just add another word.
The word "bowling".
Abracadabra!
(Sound of bowling ball dropping)
(Applause)
Truly, what I speak is what I create.
Words are one of our most powerful sources of creative power.
Words can ignite a movement.
Words can inspire us to rise above adversity.
Words can connect our hearts.
On the other hand, words can destroy creativity.
Words can take us down a rathole with self-doubt,
and words can destroy relationships.
We all know how powerful words are,
and yet it's scary how little attention we pay to our words.
We don't realize how powerful our words are,
in terms of influencing the results that we are getting in life.
Words are so powerful.
So, tonight, I'm going to equip you
by using this idea of abracadabra,
to use your words more consciously,
so that you can move toward what you want to create,
so that you can become more collaborative,
more innovative, more creative,
you can look at obstacles in different ways,
and so that you can transform your life,
your relationship, your teams, your workplace.
Abracadabra is a powerful tool for doing this.
I want you to think about your words in two ways.
Creative or limiting.
Are your words creative? Are they uplifting?
Are they inspiring? Are they generative?
Or are they negative? Are they destructive?
Are they demoralizing?
Now, just understanding this distinction
between being creative and limiting
can be a really powerful tool for you.
It may sound really elementary. But just being conscious.
Are my words that I am using right now moving me towards what I want?
Or are they moving me towards what I don't want?
And just by being conscious,
you can do kind of an abracadabra on yourself and say,
"Wait a minute. What I speak is what I create,"
"I want to be using words
that are moving me towards what I want to create."
So, let's look at this idea of abracadabra on three levels:
On a personal level, on an interpersonal level,
and from a leadership perspective.
First, the personal level.
Raise your hand if you talk to yourself.
Now, you hesitated for a moment.
I kind of saw you look up
and that leads me to believe that you were thinking,
"Do I talk to myself?"
(Laughter)
Of course you do.
We all do. We all talk to ourselves.
We have this constant churning, constant stream of thought going.
If you don't believe me, just try meditating.
You get quiet, you close your eyes, and immediately it starts. (Snap)
"Did I leave the coffee maker on?" It starts.
And we just have that constant stream going on.
In the world of magic, the magician's script is called "Pattern."
It's carefully designed words
that influence what you believe and what you see.
That internal pattern that we all have going on is similar.
It's there to influence what we believe and what we see,
and consequently what we end up creating in life.
Let me tell you a story about that internal pattern.
When I was a kid growing up, practicing magic in our farmhouse
in the basement in Michigan,
I learned about an organization called the Magic Circle in London.
Magic Circle is the oldest society of magicians in the world,
and I set a goal at age 14 to become a member.
25 years later, I was invited.
Now to become a member, you have to pass an audition
in front of 140 of the best magicians in the world
who know how you're doing and what you're doing.
Very intimidating.
About 2 weeks before my audition,
I was doing a workshop for a company in Chicago.
And it was a two-day workshop with about 100 people,
and I thought this was a perfect opportunity
for me to rehearse for my audition.
So, first day, I step out in front of a group,
and I start to perform a trick, and I screw it up royally.
I mean so bad that the audience were going,
"Oh, so that's how you do that!"
And it shook me up a little bit,
but I just rolled with it and went on with the workshop.
Day 2, I stepped out again, a different trick.
I started to perform it and I failed again.
Now I was really shaken up this time.
It was two weeks before the audition of my life,
and I had failed at two magic tricks
that I'd performed my entire life for decades,
I was so shaken that I stepped aside
and asked one of my colleagues to step in for me.
He gets up in front of a 100 people and looks over at me and says,
"What's going on with you? I've never seen you fail at a trick,"
And I was very humbled by having failed.
And I took his question to heart, and I just thought for a moment.
And I realized, and I announced it to everyone and said,
"I don't believe I'm good enough to become a member of the Magic Circle,"
and my friend lovingly looked over at me and he said,
"Abracadabra. What you speak is what you create."
I had this script running in my head
that was so powerful that it worked its way
out of my head and into my hands.
So, I set to work rewiring my brain.
I spent the next two weeks, every morning I'd take 20 minutes,
and I would sit and write a first-person accounting
of what my audition was going to look like,
what it was going to feel like,
and it was all as positive as it could be.
I could feel the energy from the group.
They want me to succeed. That kind of thing.
I did that everyday for two weeks.
I went to London; I did my audition.
And I am happy to say that I have been
a member of the Magic Circle for the last 14 years.
(Applause)
Thank you.
I'm kind of a big deal. (Laughter)
And so, you know skills and knowledge are required.
But often times they are not sufficient.
Often times it's the inner game that gets in the way.
You still need to have the skills and the knowledge.
But sometimes, what we have going on up here works its way out.
And what we speak is what we create.
Now, that story points out another aspect of abracadabra,
and that's using it on an interpersonal level.
My friend, by simply saying,
"Abracadabra, what you speak is what you create,"
made me awake.
It was something I was blind to
and suddenly, thanks to a friend, I was aware of it.
And that's what we could do for each other.
Think about if you had that kind of relationship
with people at work where we would help each other
overcome these self-limiting words and thoughts that we tend use.
My wife Jennifer created these wristbands.
They say, "Abracadabra, what I speak is what I create."
And I wear mine all the time.
I'll be working and I'll look down and notice it.
It's a chance for me to just kind of check.
I took the first quarter of this year, and I'm writing a book.
So I would write every morning. And there was a morning
when I was writing, and I was stuck --
the classic writers block -- and I looked down
and I saw my abracadabra wristband, and I just paused
and I thought, "What am I running in my head right now?"
And I realized that I had this belief that I didn't have anything worthwhile
that anyone wants to hear.
And I just thought, that's not getting me towards what I want to get,
and I just did a quick shift.
Jennifer and I use it at home with each other.
One of us will go down a rathole,
and the other one would will say, "Abracadabra."
It's just lighthearted and it's quick, it's fun and easy.
It doesn't take years of therapy and it's just quick like that.
Jennifer says that I am rather condescending
when I use it, "Abracadabra."
So that interpersonal kind of helping each other,
Jennifer and I work with an amazing organization
in Alexander, Virginia, called "Friends of Guest House"
and the guesthouse is a home for women coming out of prison.
They go there; they stay for 2 or 3 months and find housing, get jobs,
and get their support communities established.
Women who are coming out of prison have a 70% chance of going back to prison.
Women who go through the guesthouse program...7%.
It's an amazingly effective program.
So we do workshops once a quarter with these women.
And one of the things we help them with is understanding the influence
that your words have on your outcomes.
And so we were at a social event.
A bunch of us were standing around,
and a young woman comes up,
-- they call them "guests" because of "the Guest House" --
one of "the guests" came up to us and she said,
"You know I'm taking my GED for the 3rd time tomorrow,
I'll probably fail it again."
And one of her housemates reached over the wristband
the young woman's wearing on her wrist and snaps it,
and she says, " Abracadabra, honey. What you speak is what you create."
And this young woman's eyes got really big and she said,
"Oh, yeah. You know. I've been studying a lot.
I will pass this time."
And she did. What she spoke is what she created.
On a leadership level, words are so critical
because leaders, I think, in my experience,
I've been working with organizations going through transformations
for the last 30 years. That's what I do.
I use magic to teach leadership and help people shape
really positive organizational cultures.
As I have worked with leaders, one of the most important things
I have come to understand is that a great leader creates hope.
One of the ways that they do that is they tell a story that's inspiring
about where the organization is going
and they enable people to understand their role in the story,
where they fit in, how their contribution is helping us
create this amazing future.
If you're a leader and your people don't understand and aren't inspired
about where you're going, and they don't see their place in it,
then you're not leading.
Jack Dorsey is one of the cofounders of Twitter
and the current CEO of Square. --
you know, the mobile device where you swipe credit cards.
He says that one of his primary jobs
is to be the editor in chief of the square story.
He is the stewer of moving that story forward in such a way
that the people are inspired by it,
and that they feel connected to it.
In closing, I want to give you some action steps
for putting abracadabra to work.
First of all, just simply be aware.
Are the words you're using creative or limiting? Just be aware.
Second, monitor your internal language
as well as your external language.
Use abracadabra as a quick tool to notice
when you're not using words that are moving you towards the future
that you want to create,
and just Abracadabra. Make a shift.
Fourth, when you see results that aren't the results you want,
just do a little reflection, do a little examination under the surface
and consider whether or not the words
that you're running the pattern
that's going on maybe is getting in the way.
And last, journal about what it is that you're trying to create.
Do like I did with the Magic Circle audition.
Write about what your future looks like in vivid detail.
Write about it until it makes you smile.
That's kind of a task.
In closing, I want to leave you with one word.
That word is "prosperity."
Prosperity comes from Latin: Two words, "pro" and "spera."
It means "toward hope."
By choosing your words carefully,
-- the words you use with yourself and with others --
you can move towards hope; and I say that with a final "Abracadabra."
(Applause)