“I have not failed. I’ve just found 10,000 ways that won’t work.â€
― Thomas A. Edison
Dear Friends:
On the Internet, folks tag videos with the words “EPIC FAIL” like it is a bad thing. Take heart my friends. If we fear failure… we will never be creative or innovative! Let’s explore this “Epic of Failure” together, and experience how the alchemy of persistence can turn the “lead of failure” to the “gold of success!”  )0+
Oh, how I love this “Failure to Success” illustration (above)!
It really is the “Epic Story of My Life,” and illustrates how I feel about my own creative process! Â Life is not an “epic fail,” but a series of “smaller fails” that lead to success. Our first attempts are frequently dreadful. It often takes us many attempts to “get it right.”
My own process for creating a new performance piece often takes many years!
I used to beat myself up for not getting it right the first time, or thinking I was moving “too slowly.” Â Now, I finally “get it!” Â The fact is that good things take time to develop, and often, failing is a prerequisite to success.
Mr. Churchill said it years ago!
“Success is stumbling from failure to failure with no loss of enthusiasm.â€
― Winston Churchill
Love is magic! As of August 15th, Abbi and I will have been married for 12 years! But Abbi and I started co-facilitating life enriching events over 20 years ago. We love learning from experts, and sharing that knowledge with our students. Abbi and I invited our friend Marshall Sylver over to our Mystery School one day. Marshall shared his insights with our students on how he developed his impressive speaking and performing career, and balanced his amazing success with his family life. Marshall is well versed in magic, hypnotism, public speaking — and he is also a millionaire who teaches prosperity seminars. He offered one of his most potent formulas for success:
“Fail Forward Fast!”
Looks simple right? Just 3 words; “Fail forward fast.” But it took me a few years to really get this idea into practice. The essence of the idea is that we are going to make many mistakes…. let’s not fear them, let’s make them now, and make them more often than the “other guy” who fears failure!
Ms. Bankhead said it in her urbane way…
“If I had to live my life again, I’d make the same mistakes, only sooner.”
― Tallulah Bankhead
One of the big breaks I had in my life was having my teacher, Eugene Burger, to guide my progress as a performing artist. I feel very blessed to be able to share time with Eugene here at the school. If you can’t visit Las Vegas this season you can watch and listen to Eugene each week on our web-tv shows on www.mcbridemagic.tv. We have programs running 24 hours a day, online for free! Our gift to you. So if you need a little magical inspiration from Eugene and our faculty… just tune in.
Jeff and his mentor Eugene Burger at a recent Master Class”- photo by Beckett Studios
“There is only one thing that makes a dream impossible to achieve: the fear of failure.â€
― Paulo Coelho, The Alchemist
Soon, 13 magic enthusiasts from all over the world will arrive at the McBride House of Mystery for our summer Master Class. Their ages range from 18 to 65. A few are full time pros, but most are magic hobbyists. Many speak English as a second language. Though they have never met, these students have a few things in common.
For those of you that are sitting at home reading this, know that we will be here when you are ready to push past your limitations and take the next step on your magical path to success. Many years ago, I learned that helping students to realize their potential is my passion! Â So “Fail Forward Fast,” and we will see you soon online or in Las Vegas.
Yours in the art of magic,
Jeff McBride
Here is the line up so far for August 15th, 2013. WONDERGROUND is the day after MAGIC Live!, and it will rock!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=K-Fm_XulNgA
Early Stage 8pm
Jeff McBride, Bill Cook, Jen Kramer, Michael Trixx, Mr. Right & Bizzaro
The Diamond Parlor room 9pm
Jeff McBride, Jordan Wright, Bizzaro, Special MAGIC Live! guests
Late Stage 10 pm
Rudy Coby, Xavier Mortimer, Michael Trixx, Mr. Right, Jeff McBride, Bizzaro
Plus DJ Leo Diaz, Christian Diamond, Kumuda Tribal Belly Dancers, Tim Wise, Body Painting by Suzanne, Video Wizard Scott Steelfyre, Live art by Areeya, Psychic sideshow with “Scott Brown and The Readers” and much, much more! www.vegaswonderground.com.
I am writing today to announce that we have just finished and posted the exclusive Premier Member Video for 2013.  Filmed in March 2013 in Las Vegas, this 50 minute video features the Faculty of the Magic & Mystery School discussing four routines performed and taught by Jeff McBride, Larry Hass, Eugene Burger, and George Parker.  Three of the four routines have never been published before, and this is the first video presentation for all of them.
If you are a Premier Member of the Magic & Mystery School (the $100 level), this is a benefit that we have created especially for you.  Simply go to virtual.magicalwisdom.com and sign in to your Member page. You should see the “Premier Member Exclusive Video†as a separate box among your other benefits.
If you are not a Premier Member of the School, it is not too late to become one and receive access to this special video.  Please go to http://virtual.magicalwisdom.com/members/signup and sign up as a Premier Member.  Remember the lion’s share of your membership fee goes directly in our scholarship fund—every dollar of which goes out to students who need financial assistance getting the magic education they need to be more successful.
On behalf of Jeff and Eugene and the entire Faculty, we thank all of you for supporting our membership program at whatever level you are able. Â You are making a real difference for talented magicians who need your help!
Sincerely,
Larry Hass
Associate Dean, McBride’s Magic & Mystery School
“They told me my services were no longer desired because they wanted to put in a youth program as an advance way of keeping the club going. I’ll never make the mistake of being seventy again.”
— Casey Stengel
Dear Friends:
This month, our guest columnist is Bryce Kuhlman. We’ve known Bryce since he was about the age of those “kids†he writes about below. It seems to me, we weren’t much older ourselves back then. I guess we’ve been doing this for quite a while now! I’ve seen Bryce move from life as a student to earning his livelihood as a magician, on to being a rocket scientist working for Motorola, and then to building multiple businesses, mostly around his prodigious talents as a programmer. He’s one of our true “renaissance men,†who excels in multiple areas – all the time exhibiting a good nature and wisdom beyond his years. I think you’ll enjoy his insights below!
I’m at an age where I find myself frequently uttering the phrase “Kids these days…†To be honest, I’m looking forward to the day when I graduate to “You kids get off my lawn!†(though it might be “get off my website†for me). That’s probably not a good attitude to have when you get booked to help facilitate the Lance Burton Teen Seminar at the recent I.B.M. (International Brotherhood of Magicians) convention here in Phoenix.
Many of you reading this many not know much about the Teen Seminar. It all started many years ago at the Desert Magic Seminar. Joe Stevens, the convention coordinator, noticed that a lot of teens were attending the convention. So he asked Lance Burton if he’d like to host some sort of event for the teens. What started out as a simple pizza party eventually turned into a 3-day long mini-convention, just for teens. The program is now associated with the I.B.M. It is free to the teens as long as they are signed up for the convention and is hosted by Lance and members of the Magic & Mystery School faculty. This year we had 24 teens from across the US, Canada, England, Japan and Thailand.
I was concerned that I might not have anything to say to these teens. I was thinking to myself, “They just watch YouTube all day and have no interest in becoming performing magicians.â€
I’m happy, and humbled, to report that I was the clueless one, not the teens.
These teens give me hope for the future of magic as a performing art (as opposed to just an intellectual exercise). Many of them are already performing on a regular basis, both in close-up venues and on stage. In fact, when I brought up YouTube, I consistently got negative comments about exposure and how it can be a huge waste of time.
As partial proof, the teens did quite well in the competitions. Eli Portala, a past Master Class student, won 1st place in the Youth Stage Competition and made it to the stage finals and got to perform for the entire convention on the Friday night Gold Medal show, along with five acts in the adult category. Eli comes from a family of magicians and has been performing since the age of three (read more about him in our Winner’s Circle). Satori Adler and Jason Knight won Sorcerer’s Safari Camp Scholarships funded by the I.B.M. Endowment and Development Foundation.
Most exciting to me, personally: Eugene and Larry presented Tamer Qafiti with a McBride Magic & Mystery School Faculty Award, which will cover his tuition to any of our events. Tamer spent the majority of the convention in our “sessioning†room asking questions and performing great magic for anyone and everyone who would watch. We’re looking forward to working with him at an upcoming 7-day Master Class.
The art of magic is in great hands!
“I would like to recapture that freshness of vision which is characteristic of extreme youth when all the world is new to it.”
— Henri Matisse
“The play was a great success, but the audience was a disaster.â€
—Oscar Wilde, playwright
Our friend (and magic fan) Robin Leach recently wrote a story on the new trends in Las Vegas entertainment. “The hotels looked at mega-clubs as a golden egg, but those crowds shelling out steep admission prices and highly expensive bottle service, sometimes running upwards of $5,000, don’t have any money left over for shows or gaming.”
“It used to be tourists would book two or three shows on a visit here. Now we’re lucky if they see one.” The concern that Las Vegas shows might disappear and harm the image of this city being The Entertainment Capital of the World, and change it into The Nightclub Capital of the World has prompted action.
“We’ve got to get back to the intimacy of original, classic Las Vegas entertainment. The close-up factor. The superstar names. Where are today’s Rat Pack performers instead of unknown DJs playing other people’s music,†said one of the entertainment council advocates. “If we don’t change it soon, Las Vegas may never be the same again.
“Our town was filled with almost 200,000 electronic dance music fans last weekend, and only a handful of them went to see a Las Vegas show. There were too many empty seats in our theaters.â€
Read full story: http://tinyurl.com/lfyuntp
If you’ve been to Burning Man as many times as I have, then you know the secret. If you’ve been onstage in a hypnotism show then you know it, too!
The secret is participation! If you think folks want to come to Las Vegas just to sit in seats and watch the show… they can do that at home! Now, folks want to be in the show. Some shows in Vegas “get it.†I spoke with both Lance Burton and Mac King this week. They both said that the secret ingredient that keeps a show fresh is audience participation… it keeps you on your edge!  Blue Man Group has moments in the show that are full on participatory; our very own WONDERGROUND is also driven by “be the magic” philosophy. At our events, people are encouraged to be part of the show and the evening’s events. WONDERGROUND is as much a party as it is “show.â€
This week’s new WONDERGROUND video is here
http://vegaswonderground.com/watch-live/
“People will support that which they help to create.â€
—Mary Kay Ash, American Businesswoman
People support what they help create, regardless of whether it is a political movement, a sports team, or even a live performance. When you get people involved and committed to helping create an experience, they feel invited and part of the experience.  Participation is the key. It creates connection, community, and art.
Audience:  The root of the word audience comes from “audio,” which has to do with listening.  The spectator spectates… and can remain detached from the action, but participants party!  They are part of the action; they have a role to play; they are in the show, not observing the show.
“I embrace emerging experience. I participate in discovery. I am a butterfly. I am not a butterfly collector. I want the experience of the butterfly.â€
—William Stafford, English author, courtier and conspirator
John Walton & the World’s Most Original Magic!
Master Class student John Walton won The Originality Award at the recent Society of American Magicians convention. Â John presented his “Titanic Magic Square.” His routine fooled many of the most knowledgeable magicians in the world! This is the first time the award has been presented since 2001, 12 years ago. It has been awarded only a few times since 1902. Read more about the winners of magic here: http://www.magicalwisdom.com/winners
This week I fly to Hollywood to film a few TV shows for MASTERS OF ILLUSION. I will be performing NEW magic on these shows and you will get to see a few of the magic effects that I am releasing to the magic fraternity! Your can also catch my shows 24 hours a day on WWW.MCBRIDEMAGIC.TV.
See you on the air or on the road,
Jeff
Dear friends:
We’re fortunate to have wisdom from our Associate Dean for you this month. I know you’ll enjoy this, from Dr. Larry Hass:
“What’s new is an interesting question, but one which, if pursued exclusively, results only in an endless parade of trivia and fashion.â€
—Robert M. Pirsig
I invite you to remember one of your “get-away†vacations, perhaps spending three days at the beach or a long weekend in the mountains. Recall how you could dream and drift, resting your body and your brain. Remember the delicious food and the fresh clean air. Ahhh!
Next, remember how it felt to come back: emails to process, phone calls to make, “statuses†to update, blogs to check, fires to put out, content to produce. You have to get back up to speed, back on the wheel, back to the grind. Uggh.
I begin with this “memory experiment†to make three points. First, it really does feel better to be on vacation, to rest and reconnect, to taste your food, to be “unplugged.†Second, “life at speed†has become the new normal, which means that everyday life has a low-level, chronic “uggh†to it. Third, it is exceedingly easy for this to leak into our time with magic.
Here is the irony: most of us get involved in magic to have experiences like the get-away vacation, but much of the magic culture around us feels more like the daily grind. In magazines, online, posts, and tweets, we are drowning in magic news and trends, the relentless selling of endless products, and more “content†than we can possibly ingest. It is easy to become numb or superficial, lost in the sea of noise.
It is easy . . . but not necessary. In the spirit of helping you surf and sail over the waves, here are a few practices I use to keep the magic alive in my life and in my work as a magician.
1. Less is more. Look at the clutter. Look at all the unread books, the unused tricks, the un-viewed DVDs. Remember them the next time someone is getting their sales hooks in you. Give some of it away to young or developing magicians who need access to resources. (This is great for them, and it will feel good to you.) With what is left, honestly ask yourself, “Will I ever read or watch this (again)? If no, then sell what you can and throw away the rest.
2. Just say no . . . and yes. Turn off the TV, get up from the screen, unplug from the phone, turn off the “ping.†Screen life is mediated life. Further, addiction to checking devices for the latest email, tweet, or post, turns us into Homo Interruptus. Instead of that, just say “yes†to real face time rather than face-book time. Have lunch with a magic friend. Spend time with a wise, real teacher of magic. Pick up your props and practice rather than post. Having “big yeses†in our lives make it really easy to say “no.†Which reminds us that much screen time is a boredom default.
3. Cleave to quality. Part of what makes it “noise†is all the junk: low-quality tricks and books, poor writing, undeveloped content, superficial thinking. So here is one rule I follow: as soon as I get bored or put-off, I instantly stop reading or watching and move on to something good. Here is another one: I spend a large majority of my time and money on the work of proven, dependable, high-quality magic writers and creators. With both rules, the principle is simple: “Life is too short!â€
4. Re-Read a Golden Book. All of us have “golden books,†ones that have a special place in our hearts. These are the books that inspired us in magic and have a strange power to instantly reconnect us with positive feelings and productive insights. (One of mine is Eugene’s The Experience of Magic.) Re-reading a golden book is always good for the soul.
I hope you enjoy these practices! I hope they help you make every day feel a bit more like that get-away vacation.