Here’s a story Jason Ladanye told Benji and I that I’ll put into my own words.
Jason Ladanye has been performing and practicing magic pretty much since he could hold a deck of cards.
And he got pretty dang good at it.
So good in fact, that he felt as if there wasn’t much more for him to learn.
That was until he met his principal mentor – Darwin Ortiz.
When he met Darwin Ortiz, THAT was his freefall moment.
Moves he thought he’d perfected—he was suddenly informed that his method sucked.
Routines he thought entirely ironed out, and entirely fooling—were as transparent as a glass window at midday.
And Darwin’s skill at sleight of hand was so fooling Jason Ladanye couldn’t catch a single move.
At that moment, he restarted his entire magic career from scratch.
Pretty scary huh?
Here’s a similar experience we had at The Daily Magician not very long ago.
Towards the beginning of the business, we jumped on a call with Danny Goldsmith.
That’s when we realized how good someone can truly get…
Not many people know this, but Danny’s actually better with a deck of cards than he is with coins, and when we started jamming together, it was an art to watch.
We realized we needed to practice x10 harder than we were, and learn x10 more magic than we knew at that moment.
Now there are two things you can do at this type of crossroad:
You can give up, or you can press forward.
Hopefully, like us, you’ll choose to press forward.
Never be afraid to learn a new classic pass, never be afraid to realize your ambitious card routine just isn’t as good as you thought it was, and never give up on searching for those precious moments of free-fall.
As Victor Frankl said, what man needs is not a tensionless environment, but rather the call of some greater purpose.
And just to get you even more excited about this, here’s what some of the world’s biggest thinkers have to say about new beginnings:
First, the great Victor Frankl:
“Live as if you were living already for the second time and as if you had acted the first time as wrongly as you are about to act now!’’
(Reread that a couple of times)
Second, Roman Emperor and philosopher Marcus Aurelius:
“Think of yourself as dead. You have lived your life. Now, take what’s left and live it properly.”
Third, the apostle Paul in Galatians chapter 2 verse 20:
“I am crucified with Christ: nevertheless I live; yet not I, but Christ liveth in me: and the life which I now live in the flesh I live by the faith of the Son of God, who loved me, and gave himself for me.”
Alright.
That’s all for now.
See you next week!
Jacob.