Welcome back. In our last episode Drew learned the value of thinking through methods. Today, he’s going to detail how he began to undertake this philosophy and what rewards he reaped by doing so.

I just told myself I’d wait for the next time I was fooled. The next time I’d demonstrate patience, and this “think through methods” philosophy. Eventually I came across a Facebook video of a magician performing his take on a classic mentalism routine. I was fooled, badly. I ignored everything about this philosophy and immediately emailed him asking if he’d consider teaching me the routine, even for a price (nice going, Drew). To avoid piracy, he didn’t want to write it out or film it. “If I sold it to you I’d have to sell it to anyone who asked,” he said. Fair enough. I had to follow through with my own promise now, there was no other way to learn the effect!

Inspired by my friend from Part 1, I decided to make this a fun challenge for myself. For the next week or so, I would spend what little free time I had trying to reverse engineer the effect I saw on video. I even jammed with another magician on the effect. As a result, we had many creative ideas inspired by the fooler. I came up with a method that I was happy with, and sent him a message. I didn’t expect him to tell me if I was right or wrong, I just wanted to share my little theory.

He replied, impressed and ultimately somewhat touched that I went through the effort of thinking it through. He said I had got most of the method correct. He was generous enough to hop on a Zoom call to walk me through some of the finer points of the effect. We had a lovely time, and I had a deep appreciation for the method after his explanation.

I think of this as similar to my generation’s struggle with instant gratification. Don’t panic, the method is always there for your edification. The next time you are fooled and have the opportunity for the method to be taught to you right away, try to decline. Think about the enjoyment you’ll get out of thinking through the effect vs. just having the person blurt out the method to you.

The advantage that this gives you is learning the effect deeply. You might genuinely figure out how the effect works, or at least parts of it. Instead of studying it and trying to remember steps, you’re focusing on subtleties. You know the why behind parts of the method, since you’ve thought of them yourself. You’re not creating the effect, but you’re putting yourself through similar thinking processes.

I would have never been able to learn the trick that fooled me if it weren’t for thinking through methods. Give it some time, but to give you an arbitrary amount: a week. Think about it for a week and see what you come up with.

I think you’ll find it well worth your time.

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