Tony Slydini

Just how bad are you at multitasking?

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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.
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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:

 

One thing Bencivenga got right

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If you go on YouTube right now, you can see how magic is done at the very highest level — I mean really see it, the trick behind the trick.

Frankly, it will seem preposterous.

A few weeks ago, a friend (hi Marci) clued me into an old but mind-opening video. The video shows one of the greatest magicians of all time, Tony Slydini, performing his “paper balls over head” trick on the Dick Cavett Show.

The unique thing is that this trick is done so it’s completely transparent to the audience. The audience can see all parts of Slydini’s trick in action. And it doesn’t seem like any trick at all.

But there’s a volunteer on stage, who Slydini focuses on.

The volunteer is determined to spot how Slydini makes a bunch of paper balls disappear. And yet, as the crowd laughs louder and louder with each new disappearing paper ball — it’s so obvious to be stupid — the poor guy on stage can’t ever spot the trick.

The volunteer goes from smiling and confident and sure of his own eyes at the start of the trick, to walking off the stage just a few minutes later, staring at the ground and shaking his head a little. “WTF just happened?”

What happened is misdirection.

I’m reading a book about misdirection right now. It’s called Leading With Your Head. The book gives specifics about movement and position and cues for actual stage magicians. But at the heart of it all, the book tells you, misdirection is not distraction. It is focused attention.

Copywriters do misdirection, too. Well, not all copywriters. Copywriters at the very highest level.

For example, I’ve spotted misdirection multiple times in Gary Bencivenga’s “Job Interviews” ad. That ad came pretty late in Gary’s career, after he had been writing sales copy for several decades. I didn’t find any examples of misdirection in Gary’s earlier sales letters, even if they were successful. It seems it took a while for him to get it right.

And in case you’re wondering:

You won’t spot the misdirection by looking at Gary’s ad. That’s like being the guy on stage during the “paper balls over head” trick. The Great Bencivenga will focus your attention where he wants you to look, and you will miss his sleight of hand.

But you can see how Gary’s magic works if you can find the book Gary was selling through that interviews ad. This brings up an important point.

I enjoy watching magic, and I enjoy being fooled by magicians. I enjoy it so much that I don’t want to find out how the trick is done, not really. I won’t ever perform magic, so why ruin the show for myself?

Maybe you feel something similar about sales letters. That might sound preposterous, but it’s very possible.

When you read a sales letter like Gary’s interviews ad — you’re likely to be amazed, astounded, to wonder at the impossible promises he is making you, which somehow still seem credible.

How is he doing it? Could Gary’s promises really be real? It’s possible to enjoy racking your brain over this in a bit of pleasurable uncertainty, as you try to resolve the mysteries Gary is setting out before you.

But once you see the actual “secrets” behind Gary’s copywriting tricks, the illusion vanishes like a cloud of smoke. And gone along with it is that enjoyable sense of wonder, of possible impossibility.

The only reason you might want to ruin the show for yourself is that you yourself want to perform sales magic — writing actual copy, which focuses people’s attention where you want it to go, all the way down to the order form where they put in their credit card information, and the big red button that says, “Buy NOW.”

It’s your decision. Amazed spectator shaking his head in wonder… or sly and knowing performer, controlling attention and doing magic.

If you decide you want the second, you can find Gary’s copy misdirection revealed inside Copy Riddles, specifically rounds 2, 6, and 17. For that show, step right up:

https://bejakovic.com/cr/