Nobody called me out on it. But yesterday, I made a kind of preposterous claim.
I was talking about the following headline:
“If you’ve got 20 minutes a month, I guarantee to work a financial miracle in your life”
… and I said that his was an example of a concrete promise, something real and palpable.
As of this writing, nobody wrote me to challenge me on that. So let me do your job for you:
“Really Bejako? A ‘financial miracle in your life’? That’s your example of a concrete and real and palpable promise?”
Yes, really. And to prove it to you, let me tell you a story.
This story involves a man. A man named Tony. Tony Slydini.
Little Italian guy.
Wrinkled, like a salted cod fish.
Spoke with a heavy Italian accent.
Performed magic tricks like you wouldn’t believe.
One of Slydini’s magic tricks involved making a bunch of paper balls disappear, only to appear in a hat that was empty at the start of the trick.
Before making each paper ball disappear, Slydini performed a few elaborate hand gestures. He’d wave the paper ball around in front of him, close it in his hand, sprinkle some invisible magic dust on it, open his hand, close it again, etc.
If you haven’t seen this trick, I have a link to it at the end.
But before you go watch, read on. Because I’m about to spoil the magic for you, and that’s important.
How does Slydini make each paper ball disappear?
And how does he teleport them inside the hat?
If you don’t want to know, then stop reading now. Otherwise, I’ll tell you.
Still here?
Fine. Here’s the trick behind the magic, from an article in Scientific American:
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Slydini deposits the vanished paper balls into the hat when he reaches inside the hat to fetch invisible magic dust. This mock action prevents the audience from assigning an additional, key intent to the move: to unload the paper balls inside the hat, to later reveal them at the trick’s finale.
Just as our visual system strains to see the vase and the two faces at once, we struggle to conceive of a motion that has a dual motivation: to put and to fetch. Even when it should be apparent to every member of the audience, and to every YouTube viewer, that Slydini’s action of fetching magical powder inside the hat must be a ruse.
In other words, even when the ostensible purpose is preposterous, we still can’t consider an alternative explanation.
That’s how bad our brains are at multitasking.
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Our brains are sticky. This creates some strange phenomena.
Give me a warm cup of coffee to hold. Then show me a stranger’s face. I’ll evaluate the stranger as looking friendly.
Point my attention to the 20 minutes I know I have. Then make me a promise of a financial miracle in my life. I’ll evaluate your promise as concrete and real.
Don’t believe that it works?
You can see Slydini’s trick on YouTube. Link’s below.
You now know how the trick is done. But watch it yourself — it takes all of 4 minutes — and witness just how bad you are at multitasking: