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WORK TITLE: Spellbound
WORK NOTES:
PSEUDONYM(S):
BIRTHDATE: 8/20/1980
WEBSITE: http://www.davidkwongmagic.com
CITY: Los Angeles
STATE: CA
COUNTRY:
NATIONALITY:
https://www.harpercollins.com/cr-122728/david-kwong * http://www.insidehook.com/nation/david-kwong-spellbound * http://www.marketwatch.com/story/from-meeting-clients-to-job-interviews-magician-david-kwong-shows-how-to-be-your-most-competitive-at-work-2017-05-12
RESEARCHER NOTES:
PERSONAL
Born August 20, 1980.
EDUCATION:Graduated from Harvard University.
ADDRESS
CAREER
Magician. New York Times, crossword puzzle constructor. Magic consultant for the film Now You See Me as well as the secret code advisor for the NBC television program Blindspot. Has consulted on a variety of other films, including The Imitation Game, The Magnificent Seven, and Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation. Kwong also gives TED talks on how the human brain is wired to solve problems and illusions.
WRITINGS
SIDELIGHTS
David Kwong is a magician. After graduating from Harvard University with a degree in history, he became a crossword puzzle constructor for the New York Times. Kwong’s crossword trick serves as his signature trick when performing magic. Kwong served as the head magic consultant for the film Now You See Me as well as the secret code advisor for the NBC television program Blindspot. Kwong has consulted on a variety of other films, including The Imitation Game, The Magnificent Seven, and Mission: Impossible—Rogue Nation. Kwong also gives TED talks on how the human brain is wired to solve problems and illusions.
Kwong published his first book, Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success, in 2017. The account offers seven basic principles from the art of illusion that businesspeople can take advantage of to achieve their goals and get ahead of their competitors. Kwong’s techniques include minding the gap, which teaches readers to be aware of and to make use of the perceptual space between the other person’s ability to see and perceive something; loading up to impress one’s audience; writing the script to shape the narrative of one’s illusion; controlling the frame to increase one’s ability to misdirect; designing free choice by giving one’s audience agency; enjoying the familiar to secretly take advantage of patterns and habits; and conjuring an out to stay ahead of competitors. Kwong guides readers to use illusion while sharing why magicians tricks can be applied in the business world and in life in general. A contributor to Publishers Weekly found the book to be “enjoyable,” adding that it “is a ‘virtual wand’ for those who want a bit of magic in their lives.”
In an interview in Market Watch, Kwong talked with Barbara Chai about his debut book. Kwong admitted it could be difficult to spot a con. He explained that “cons are effective because they play into our emotions and our need to believe things. Con men are able to pinpoint what your needs are and go after them,” adding that it is “human nature to fall prey to these things sometimes. This book is not going to make you bulletproof to cons but it can certainly get you thinking about how a con man might exploit you.” In the same Market Watch interview, Kwong also discussed the way the brain is naturally wired to explain discrepancies between seeing and believing, meaning that it is susceptible to illusion. Kwong noted: “Will the bottom fall out of illusions at some point? I do think so. Remember, a magician has a contract with his audience that this is entertainment, which is why James Randi says in the documentary “An Honest Liar” that the magician is the most honest person because he tells you he’s going to fool you, and then he fools you. In the real world outside the theater, you have to be more authentic. If you are only trading in illusions then the bottom will fall out at some point.”
Writing in Inside Hook, Kwong talked about the science behind the free-will principle and how it can apply to daily life. Kwong shared that “supermarkets are wonderful examples of choice architecture. Supermarket owners have studied human behavior as shoppers. Some go as far as to put the premium goods on the right side of the aisle, because most people are right-handed and they’ll grab for them that way,” appending that nobody is “forcing you to buy these things. You have the freedom to choose, which is why this is such a powerful principle. But you are being nudged towards what they hope will be the purchase of premium goods.”
BIOCRIT
PERIODICALS
Publishers Weekly, March 13, 2017, review of Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success, p. 77.
ONLINE
David Kwong Website, http://www.davidkwongmagic.com (May 5, 2017).
Inside Hook, http://www.insidehook.com/ (May 5, 2017), “How to Make People Do What You Want, According to a Magician.”
Market Watch, http://www.marketwatch.com/ (May 23, 2017), Barbara Chai, “Magician and Crossword Master David Kwong on How to Succeed at Everything.”*
Magician and crossword master David Kwong on how to succeed at everything
By Barbara Chai
Published: May 23, 2017 1:40 p.m. ET
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The suave illusionist talks about staying competitive
Jillian Sipkins
Magician David Kwong: ‘Illusion is all about commanding people’s attention. The brain can’t handle two pieces of info at once.’
Magician David Kwong, known for combining his mastery of crossword puzzles with magic tricks, travels a lot throughout the year, and always with a red toolbox to hold his tricks.
To an audience, he’ll reveal only the contents of the box that are necessary — a pack of cards, a Rubik’s Cube. But the rest of his tricks and props remain a mystery, except when he’s passing through security at the airport with the toolbox, and Transportation Security Administration officials become suspicious of its contents. “They’re normal-looking objects with other things hidden inside,” Kwong explains. For example, one of his tricks involves hiding a dollar bill inside a kiwi. To make his case to the officials, “I’ve done a lot of magic at TSA.”
The mysterious toolbox notwithstanding, Kwong is revealing the science behind his magic and illusion in a new book, “Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success” ($22.99, HarperBusiness). Here, he illustrates how anyone can apply seven principles of illusion to their lives to gain a competitive edge — and protect themselves against manipulators or con artists.
Kwong illustrates how anyone can apply seven principles of illusion to their lives to gain a competitive edge — and protect themselves against manipulators or con artists.
“It was very important to me when I wrote this book to not create a handbook on how to deceive people. One could argue that illusion is inherently deceptive.” says Kwong. “What I’m doing is empowering the reader to have more command and control in their lives and realize how they can get a step ahead of the competition.”
Kwong also works in Hollywood as a magic and puzzle consultant on projects such as the caper film “Now You See Me” and the NBC show “Blindspot.” He is one of the producers of an ABC pilot, “Deception,” about an illusionist. He sat with MarketWatch to discuss his book and how principles of illusion can be used in the workplace.
MarketWatch: How do you sniff out a con?
Kwong: It’s hard. Cons are effective because they play into our emotions and our need to believe things. Con men are able to pinpoint what your needs are and go after them. I’ve certainly fallen prey to cons too. Someone asking me for spare change, cooking up a story for why they needed change for the bus, and one part of my brain was saying, “this story isn’t real,” but the other side was saying, “this person needs help and I’m in a position to help them.” It was to no great detriment but I sort of knew the con was happening as it was unfolding. It’s human nature to fall prey to these things sometimes. This book is not going to make you bulletproof to cons but it can certainly get you thinking about how a con man might exploit you.
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MarketWatch: You write that illusion works because the brain is wired to fill the gap between seeing and believing. What if the majority of people only see what they believe, rather than what’s actually there?
Kwong: Will the bottom fall out of illusions at some point? I do think so. Remember, a magician has a contract with his audience that this is entertainment, which is why James Randi says in the documentary “An Honest Liar” that the magician is the most honest person because he tells you he’s going to fool you, and then he fools you. In the real world outside the theater, you have to be more authentic. If you are only trading in illusions then the bottom will fall out at some point.
Also see: This is why Dutch kids are much happier than American children
I’ll generally say there’s a lot of misdirection in politics these days. And if you look at the essence of misdirection, the famed Dutch magician Tommy Wonder said that effective misdirection is presenting to your audience something of greater interest. So, bad misdirection is having somebody drop a tray full of metal pots on the floor, causing everybody to look over and be distracted. There are some misdirectors in today’s political environment who are very good at creating another sensational piece of news to absorb everybody else’s attention and direct them away from any current scrutiny that they might be under.
In his own words, Kwong shows how illusion helps with these workplace scenarios:
Giving a presentation
Illusion is all about commanding people’s attention. The brain can’t handle two pieces of info at once. If you look at Rubin’s vase, it’s either two faces or a vase. Your brain can’t handle both of those at once. Studies have been done where if people are saying words but their hands are making opposite gestures, fewer people will comprehend what you’re saying. So it’s important to be focused and keep command and having the presentation represent that.
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A big part of what a magician does is being prepared. That may seem like a mundane principle but magicians take it to an extreme. Imagine you’re giving a presentation in a boardroom and you have seven different versions of your presentation based on the feedback or responses of the audience. You iterate based on that feedback to give the strongest version of your presentation, of your show, in real time. Magicians will pivot - there’s a tree of options and you can choose the most effective ending to your trick based on the choices and selections that the audience gives you.
Just as a corollary to this, you can then choose whether you keep these multiple presentations secret and close to the vest to appear as the superhuman version of yourself or -- which is often the case with me -- disclose to your colleagues just how prepared you were and you become superhuman in a different way: Someone they can trust and rely on.
Making a pitch to a coveted client
The most effective magic tricks are stories. Chapter 3 is called “Write the Script” and I talk about the relationship between magic and storytelling. A researcher for Johns Hopkins predicted the most popular Super Bowl commercial in 2014 just by looking at the range of them. It was “Puppy Love” -- it had a mini story arc in 30 seconds and there’s a real beginning, middle and end. I think the most effective ad pitches are going to do the same thing. Human beings are so wired to respond to stories. Storytelling was a survival instinct - go this way for the food, go this way to avoid the saber-toothed tiger. Stanford marketing professor Jennifer Aaker found that stories are up to 22 times more memorable than facts or figures alone.
Rallying the troops after a restructuring
A magician or good leader controls the narrative. Things go wrong all the time in magic performances. There are dips or failures, but a strong leader can command an audience’s attention throughout. The magician puts his arms around the audience and still carries them throughout the show.
Kraft Heinz KHC, +0.31% absorbed Cadbury in 2010 and the Cadbury employees feared there would be a loss of their tradition and values. Kraft spent a lot of time within the company on an intranet site to raise morale and a unified spirit through a campaign called Coming Together, which told the stories of how the two founders had similar backgrounds and how their values aligned. It explained the history of Kraft’s acquisitions and how those mergers played out so there were no surprises. This storytelling was repeated and broadcast throughout the company and everybody came on board and disaster was diverted.
When to guard (and share) your creative gold
I don’t think ideas are a zero-sum game. There is room for an unlimited amount of people to be creative and have original ideas. In the magic world, the zero-sum concern is on steroids because you have performers claiming “I am the Great, I am the amazing,” but that’s not the right approach. There’s a lot of room for a lot of people to do amazing things. I think that’s true in the workplace as well. I’ll also say there are times when it’s not always the most effective thing to remain so protective and guarded over your own ideas. You can share the credit with others and everybody moves forward.
Going on a job interview and meeting clients
Researching your interviewer and knowing everything about him/her can only help you. Every mind-reader and mentalist is going on Facebook FB, +0.24% or Instagram ahead of time to learn things about people. There’s a lot of information out there on the internet that they don’t even realize they’ve shared and magicians take advantage of that all the time.
David Rockefeller, former chairman of Chase Manhattan, reportedly had a Rolodex of 100,000 names. Bill Clinton also was known to have an index card system and when he would meet someone, he would scroll down to read who they were and where they came from. They would tap into this database so on any business or social occasion, they would know every detail, and that is the illusion of spontaneity. Who does not want to receive that warm handshake and have someone say your name and recall the previous meetings you’ve had over the last number of years?
(This interview has been edited for style and space.)
HOW TO MAKE PEOPLE DO WHAT YOU WANT, ACCORDING TO A MAGICIAN
Choice is an illusion. Or, it can be, at least.
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“Choose a card, any card.”
We hear magicians say that all of the time. But behind that simple phrase is one of the most clever and important principles of legerdemain: the illusion of free choice.
“[It] is probably one of the magician's most closely guarded, powerful secrets,” says magician David Kwong. “If you, as an audience member, are given the ability to choose something, you believe that you have chosen freely, that everything is fair because we as humans closely guard our free will and our ability to make choices.”
In addition to performing, Kwong writes crossword puzzles for the New York Times. He has designed magic tricks for Blindspot and Now You See Me. And his new book, Spellbound, outlines the seven principles of incorporating illusions into our everyday lives.
This book is not designed for those who want to become magicians. Rather, it’s a magician’s take on storytelling, and it details seven ways in which you can improve work presentations, parenting skills, purchasing decision and more — via magic. We recently spoke with Kwong about free choice — and how to, well, manipulate it. Here are some takeaways from that conversation.
On the science behind the free-will principle ...
“There was an experiment done in 2000 with two control groups in a French shopping mall. A young man approached people and said: ‘Can I have some change for the bus?’, and they gave him a certain amount of money. But then he went to the second group and said, ‘May I have change for the bus? You are free to accept or refuse,’ reminding them of their free will. Those people gave more money. The success rate was nearly five times the original one.”
On how this can prove pivotal to good management ...
“There's a fantastic book called Nudge by Richard Thaler and Cass Sunstein. Nudging is a leadership term that means you know what is best for your employees. Without forcing them, how do you get them to arrive at the decision themselves? You nudge them. You just give them a little push in the right direction. A great example of this is in the cafeteria: if you want people to eat healthier, you put the healthy food at eye level so that everybody sees it and it's the first thing they see. The rest of the options are still there, but you're dangling the best option right in front of them. Magicians take advantage of that all the time. We are like good leaders and good CEOs: we are choice architects. We change the environment in which choices are made, is a good way to put it.”
What do you think?
On how this can be used in parenting ...
“Next time your kids don’t want to go to bed, say, ‘I'll tell you what. You can decide. Do you want to go to bed in five minutes or ten minutes? You make the decision.’ You know? It's like the FBI agent saying, ‘Do you want to come out of the house with the hostages in the front door or the back door? Whichever makes you more comfortable.’”
On why you should be aware of this next time you go to the supermarket ...
“Supermarkets are wonderful examples of choice architecture. Supermarket owners have studied human behavior as shoppers. Some go as far as to put the premium goods on the right side of the aisle, because most people are right-handed and they'll grab for them that way. They've studied the traffic patterns of the shopping carts, knowing that you probably will go clockwise around the store, so they put it in that sort of spiral. They definitely put the bread and the milk and the other staples in the back of the store so you have to walk through all the other goods to get to them. No one's forcing you to buy these things. You have the freedom to choose, which is why this is such a powerful principle. But you are being nudged towards what they hope will be the purchase of premium goods.”
What do you think?
To seal the deal, orchestrate a “leave-behind”
“Magicians will do this thing called a leave-behind, which is even after the show, after I've left the premises, I've left something behind to strengthen the illusion even more. Let’s say I'm performing with a magazine or newspaper that I've doctored in some way to pull off an illusion. I'm also going to have a second normal newspaper or magazine that then I leave in the trash on my way out, so then any curious, nosy person is going to fish out of the trash, is going to be completely and utterly fooled when they try to make sense of how the illusion was pulled off. When that happens, when people buy into a leave-behind like that, the illusion is bulletproof. In that moment, they're fooling themselves.”
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David Kwong
David Kwong
Biography
DAVID KWONG is a magician and New York Times crossword puzzle constructor. He holds a degree in history from Harvard, where he studied the history of magicians. Kwong was the head magic consultant on the worldwide hit Now You See Me and is the secret code advisor on NBC's Blindspot. Other films he has consulted on include Mission: Impossible - Rogue Nation, The Imitation Game, and The Magnificent Seven. A TED Talk favorite, Kwong regularly lectures and performs for companies worldwide. He lives in Los Angeles.
With his expertise in enigmas and magic, David Kwong delights and challenges audiences around the world with his intellectual brand of “puzzles and prestidigitation.”
A veteran “cruciverbalist” (crossword puzzle constructor), Kwong routinely creates puzzles for the New York Times, Los Angeles Times, Wall Street Journal and other national publications. He concludes his one-man show with his original crossword puzzle magic trick.
Kwong is the puzzle and secret code consultant for the hit NBC show “Blindspot.” He was the head magic consultant on the 2013 worldwide hit film Now You See Me. Other films Kwong and his Misdirectors Guild have worked on include The Imitation Game, Ant-Man, Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation, and The Magnificent 7.
Kwong was a featured speaker at TED 2014. His talk on how human beings are “wired to solve” involved hiding secret messages in the New York Times crossword puzzle. Kwong’s book Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success was published by Harper Business in May 2017.
Kwong is a graduate of Harvard University, where he studied the history of magic.
Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success
Publishers Weekly. 264.11 (Mar. 13, 2017): p77.
Copyright: COPYRIGHT 2017 PWxyz, LLC
http://www.publishersweekly.com/
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Spellbound: Seven Principles of Illusion to Captivate Audiences and Unlock the Secrets of Success
David Kwong. HarperBusiness, $27.99 (272) ISBN 978-0-06-244846-0
Kwong, a stage magician and New York Times crossword puzzle maker, breaks down the art of illusion into seven principles that businesspeople can use to get ahead. His techniques include "minding the gap" between what audiences see and what they want to believe, "loading up" by researching and practicing before a show, and "conjuring an out" in case the grand finale goes off course and a backup plan is necessary. He explains that all seven of these tricks of the trade have real-life and historical applications. Without revealing major secrets of his craft, Kwong gives laypeople a taste of what lies behind the sleight of hand and misdirection wielded by magicians from Houdini to David Copperfield. He intersperses these examples with the illusions and manipulations employed by historical figures, such as F.D.R., and successful companies, such as Ikea. This enjoyable work from a confident master of his trade is a "virtual wand" for those who want a bit of magic in their lives. (May)