The curse of knowledge makes it nearly impossible for a magician to see their own trick from the audience's perspective. I discovered this the hard way when a routine I thought was bulletproof turned out to be completely transparent.
Read MoreResearch shows people massively overestimate how visible their internal states are. This cognitive bias almost stopped me from performing before I learned the science behind it.
Read MoreA thousand successful performances don't prove your trick is foolproof. One failure reveals more than any number of successes, but confirmation bias keeps us counting only the wins.
Read MoreThe most productive practice session I ever had was the one where I deliberately tried to make every trick fail.
Read MoreNassim Taleb's black swan concept applied to magic performance. One catastrophic failure at a corporate event taught me more than years of successful shows.
Read MoreScientific research on magic is done in controlled labs, not chaotic venues. But the principles about perception, memory, and attention transfer surprisingly well to real performance.
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