How to magically connect with anyone | Brian Miller | TEDxManchesterHighSchool

This talk was given at a local TEDx event, produced independently of the TED Conferences.

Magicians have mastered the art of understanding different perspectives in order to create illusions and connect with the audience. Brian Miller explains how he used that skill to create magic for a blind man. Then he shares how you can use the same technique to make better, more meaningful connections with people in your life, personally and professionally.

Well, thank you.

Our world is a shared experience,
fractured by individual perspectives,

yours and mine.

Imagine if we could all
understand each other.

When I first started my career in magic,

I was doing a lot of performing
in restaurants,

table to table card and coin tricks,
sleight of hand and whoop!

you got a good seat for this.

This one night, I was on fire:
I remember I was fast and funny,

my moves were perfect, I was unstoppable.

I sauntered up to this one table,
an elderly man and his wife,

and said, "Would you like
to see some magic?"

The man looked at me, and he said,

"Sir, I would love to see
some magic, but I can't.

Unfortunately, I am blind."

I looked at him, really looked at him
for the first time, and it was so clear

he was blind: his eyes were glazy,
he wasn't really looking at me.

Anybody would've known that,
but I was so wrapped up in my evening,

so lost in my world,
I wasn't looking at him.

I just saw two generic people
and launched into my show.

I stood there, embarrassed,
and that word was ringing in my ears,

"blind, blind, blind",
and I had no choice, and I said,

"I'm sorry, I didn't know.
I don't have anything I can do for you,

but if you come back again sometime,

I promise to have some sort of magic
that I can share with you."

He said, "I'll hold you to that!",
and I went on with my night.

A few weeks later, they came back in;

I recognized them immediately,
and I panicked.

I had completely forgotten about it.

I raced back to the room
where I kept my props,

thinking about every trick I'd ever learned
and every book I'd ever read,

something, anything
I could do for the man,

and then I remembered reading
an obscure idea a long time ago

in an old manuscript, it was all I had.

So I composed myself, I walked back out,
and said, "Hey folks, my name is Brian,

would you like to see some magic?"

And he cut me off, he goes,

"Alright, we are back,
what have you got for me?"

with a big smile on his face.

I asked his wife, "May I sit
next to you?" and she said, "Sure."

I sat down, and I said "Ed,"
- his name was Ed -

do you trust your wife?"

and he said, "Sometimes." (Laughter)

Then I said, "Will you trust her now?"
and he said, "Sure."

So I took out a pack of cards,
gave them to her, and said,

"Mix the cards, make sure
there's no special markings on them,"

and she said, "No, they're fine."

I took Ed's hand and said,
"I'll place a card in your hand

do you think it's a red card
or a black card?"

Then he said red, and he was right;

the next card, he said red,
and he was right again.

I put down the next one,
and he said, "Hmm, black!"

Again he was correct;

his wife is getting skeptical
at this point.

We keep going, red, red, black, black,
red, and he's getting all of them right!

Red, black, red, faster, black, black,
black, red, through the whole deck,

black, black, red, every single one
of them right, and at the end,

Ed is laughing, he's howling,
the whole restaurant is staring at us,

and I turn to see his wife,
and she is weeping tears of joy.

It was the most beautiful magic
I had ever experienced.

A little bit later, I am going
to tell you how we did it.

But the real secret of the trick,
the real secret of magic,

is understanding and taking on
different perspectives,

different points of views.

Let's try to experiment with perspective,
would you like to see some magic?

Alright, let's try
a little experiment here.

This is one of old illusions
in magic, here we go.

Check that out for me;
yes please, here you go.

That's rope right there,
you can check that out.

I got some more over here, here you go,
one for you yes, and one for you.

Make sure that's what it seems to be;
is it what it seems to be?

Are you what you seem to be? (Laughter)
I don't know what that means.

That's good, I'll take that back,
you look as confused as I do.

Here we go, I'll take that, thank you,
one, two, and three pieces of rope.

Three pieces of rope,
and they're all the same length yes?

It's going to be a tough crowd,
I can tell;

you are going to have
to believe me on this.

So I'll take the ends and I hold them up:
they look like they're the same length.

The ends do, I didn't say
it was a great illusion.

It'll be a tough crowd, I think.
Here we go, I'll prove it to you.

Yeah, that's all, thank you! (Applause)

That's the big one right there,
the medium right there,

and that's the small one right there.

There's too many things going on,
so I'll get rid of one of the pieces,

so that it'll be easier to follow
with only two, won't it?

I should just start over,
it'll be little bit simpler.

So sometimes the ends come off,
which is a little unusual,

I'll do that again
just in case you missed it.

There are people who think
that this trick is all about the ends.

That's not true, the middles,
those come off too.

Place the middles right here,
back on the rope,

and we're back in business.

But you guys know this trick
wasn't done with one piece of rope,

it wasn't even done with... two pieces.

It was actually done with--
two of us watched Sesame Street.

That's the big one right there,
that's the medium one right there,

and that's the small one right there;
can you guys tell which one's which?

See this one right here?
This is the big one, that's the big one.

That's the medium one,
and that's the small one,

a little illusion to get things started.

(Applause)

Well, thank you very much.
Now, what just happened there?

It seems that you and I had
a very different experience, doesn't it?

What did I see?

I saw the moves,
the sleight of hand, and the juggling.

You probably saw the ends of a rope,
jumping on and off, three different ropes,

changing lengths impossibly,
violating all the laws of physics.

That's just what we saw, what did we feel?
You may have felt, hopefully, wonder?

Maybe amusement? Perhaps frustration?

I felt focus; these are
two very different perspectives

of the same experience.

You see, magicians have a unique dilemma.

The magician is the only person
who cannot see the magic

because I know how the trick works,

and that knowledge of the secret
is a limiting perspective.

So the magician must wholly,
and completely,

take on the point of view of the audience.

We do this night after night,
no matter who's out there

in order to create illusions.

This is a technique called
"perspective taking".

Perspective taking is
the ability to see the world

from the point of view of another person.

It sounds simple in theory,
but in practice,

it can be incredibly difficult to do.

For instance, have you guys played around
with one of these before?

Aha, a few of you look excited,

most of you look angry
just because I'm holding one.

I feel flashbacks to childhood,

some of you started twitching
when I took one out.

I love the Rubik's cube;

they're actually easier to solve
than you think they are.

Take the stickers off, rearrange them,
put them back in the right order?

Break the pieces apart,
put it back together?

I learned how to do this,
and then realized,

if you spin it really fast...
it looks like it solves itself.

(Laughter)

So what just happened there?
Oh, thank you. (Applause)

Kind of a delayed response,
everybody was just... (Laughter)

So what just happened there?

Well, I know that if I come out,
mix up a Rubik's cube, toss it in the air,

and it comes down solved,
you're all going to to think I'm a jerk.

At the very least, a show off,
and I don't want you to feel like that.

I want you to enjoy the experience
of magic so I make a few jokes.

Take the stickers off, rearrange them,
break the pieces apart, and then you go,

"Oh I did that! My friends, we smashed it
with a hammer, we threw it at a wall!"

When that happens,
you feel like I understand you.

When you feel understood,
we make a connection,

and then I can do the trick,

and we can all enjoy the magic
in that shared space.

So now you know
what perspective taking is.

It's the ability to see the world
from the point of view of another person.

You also know why magicians do it:

to create illusions,
and to connect with the audience.

But why should you care?

Well, it turns out this technique
has drastically improved my life

off stage, outside of magic, in more ways
than I could have ever imagined.

I'll explain.

I never had trouble meeting new people:

making friends,
getting into relationships.

But I always struggled to maintain them.

Eventually, the communication
would break down, people would leave,

and I would be alone.

It took a long time to admit it,
but it was my fault, or at least mostly.

The people in my life didn't feel
like I was invested in them.

Now that wasn't true,
but it doesn't matter.

It's not enough to care about somebody;
it's not enough to understand them.

They have to feel understood,
they have to feel cared about,

and I wasn't doing that.

Then I took this technique
I had honed on stage,

and I started using it outside of magic,

and I realized I can make better,
more meaningful connections with people.

I met friends, incredible friends,
that have lasted years,

I met a beautiful, fiercely intelligent
woman, the love of my life,

and I held on to that relationship.

We're actually engaged to be married.

Oh, thank you.

(Applause)

She'll be happy to hear that.

None of that would have been
possible before.

So of course the question then becomes

how, how do you do it,
how do you do perspective taking?

Well, first you need
to understand the difference

between visual perspective
and emotional perspective.

Magicians traditionally deal
with visual perspective.

We need to know, literally,

what the trick looks like to the audience.

So we practice in front of mirrors,
we film ourselves and watch it back,

but relationships are primarily
about emotional perspective.

How is somebody feeling
about our interaction?

It seems like a difficult thing to do,

to get to know someone's
emotional perspective,

but let's get back to Ed, Ed and his wife.

The relevant question for Ed was,

"What would magic feel like
to someone who is blind?"

I didn't want Ed to feel tricked,
that was important to me.

I don't know, but I have to imagine
if you are blind, you could be tricked

by anybody, at anytime.

So I didn't Ed want to feel tricked;
I wanted him to feel magic,

I wanted him to be magical,

and his wife, this woman to spends
her life looking out for him,

I wanted her to see him in that light,

and for them to share
in that experience together.

So if you want to get to know
someone's emotional perspective,

one of the simplest way to do it, ask.

Ask questions.

Too often we're afraid
to ask people questions

because we feel like it will be rude,
or somehow they won't want to answer,

but we underestimate people's
willingness to answer our questions.

Before the trick, I asked Ed,
"Have you always been blind?"

He said yes.

To me that was crucial,
relevant information.

It seems that a person
who has never been able to see

will have a different perspective
from somebody who had their sight,

and then lost it to accident, or illness.

With Ed I cannot even use
the language of sight.

So by asking questions,
I can adjust my tone,

my demeanor, even my language,

so that he feels understood
and we can make a connection.

Now, if you're going to learn this,
it's important not simply to ask questions

but to listen to the answers,
and listen to understand.

Don't just listen to respond,
or to reply, and you've heard it before.

This is where I went wrong
most in my life, I think.

You've heard to before,

and we're all guilty of it
from time to time.

But too often we listen to people
only with the intention

of coming up with something clever
to say so as soon as their lips stop,

we can jump in and say our thing.

We've all done it, we're all guilty,
but I did this especially badly,

and I think to the detriments
of my relationships.

Have you ever asked for somebody's name,
and instantly forgotten it?

Why do we forget people's names?

Because while they're telling us
their name, we're thinking

about how we're going to say ours:
first name, last name, Mr. Miller, Brian.

We're not listening, we're on our end
of the conversation only.

So you can start to learn this technique:

ask questions, listen
to understand the answers.

When you do that I think you'll find
you can make better,

more meaningful connections with people,
personally and professionally.

It drastically improved my life,
and I really believe it can improve yours.

So, Ed.

How did Ed, a blind man, see the cards?

The answer, as in most great magic,
was actually very simple.

I sat across from him,
and underneath the table,

I placed my foot gently on top of his.

Then I gave him these instructions;
"If you think the card is a red card,"

and I pushed my foot down
on his once, "then you say red."

If you think it's a black card,"
and I pushed my foot down on his twice,

"then you say black."

I was teaching Ed a secret system
of communication,

where I would let him know
what color the card was,

by the foot taps,
once for red, twice for black.

I repeated the instructions,
"if you think it's a red card, say red.

If you think it's a black card, say black"
and then I squeezed his hands gently,

and I asked, "Do you understand?"

He smiled, and said, "Yes, I understand."

I knew then that we had connected.

When it was all said and done,
I taught his wife how we did it,

like I just taught you,

so they could do it
for their friends and family.

Ed was so excited, he couldn't wait
to see his grandkids that weekend

so he could, quote,
"freak them out completely!"

(Laughter)

See, magic isn't about the technical skill
or a trick, or even the secret!

Magic is about connecting.
Life is about connecting.

Connecting is about taking on
other points of view.

You see, our world is a shared experience,

fractured by individual perspectives.

Imagine if we could all feel understood.

Thank you.

(Applause)