“Willpower is the key to success. Successful people strive no matter what they feel by applying their will to overcome apathy, doubt or fear.” – Dan Millman
Welcome to October’s Mysteries of the Mind Newsletter
WILLPOWER.
I just read a fantastic book on this subject. “Willpower: Rediscovering the Greatest Human Strength.” Recently out in paperback.
One of my favorite stories from this book is the update on the famous 1968 Marshmallow test. In the early 70’s researcher and psychologist Walter Mischel of Stanford first published his ingenious experiment with Marshmallows and 4 year olds. 40 years later, after following these kids throughout their lives, the long-term results are in and they are life changing, literally.
The Test: Mischel submitted hundreds of four-year-olds to a test of willpower. The kids were set in a small room with a marshmallow or cookie and told they could either eat the treat now, or, if they could hold out for another 15 minutes until the researcher returned, they could have two.
The Results: Most children said they would wait. But some failed to resist the temptation for even 30 seconds. Many struggled a little longer than a minute before giving in. The most successful participants, however, figured out how to distract themselves from the tempting treat by turning around, covering their eyes, petting the marshmallow like it was a pet or kicking the desk. By changing their focus they delayed gratification for the full 15 minutes and received two treats.
Recent follow-up studies on these preschoolers found that those who were able to wait the 15 minutes were significantly less likely to have problems with behavior, drug addiction or obesity by the time they were in high school, compared with kids who devoured the snack in less than a minute. The gratification-delayers also scored an average of 210 points higher on their SAT scores.
Mischel recently wrote that most people tend to focus on the immediate pleasure of the experience. The marshmallow. They will think of the temptation, as Mischel likes to say, in a “hot” or emotional way that makes it hard to resist. The same can be said of an adult smoker or alcoholic. But if you do want to resist, says Mischel, what you need to do is think about the object you desire in a “cold” or cognitive way.
So, for example, to help the children resist the treat, before leaving the room Mischel told the kids to imagine the treat in front of them differently. “I told them to think about those marshmallows as if they were just cotton puffs, or clouds. Those instructions to the 4-year-olds had a dramatic effect on their ability to wait for the thing that they couldn’t wait for before.” By changing perspective it changes reality. By changing our focus we can overcome temptation.
Happy Halloween! Make sure to eat all of your candy, but leave a marshmallow for me!
Here is a modern clip of some 4 year olds trying to resist
Watch here
“Nothing can withstand the power of the human will if it is willing to stake its very existence to the extent of its purpose.” – Benjamin Disraeli
“You can have anything in this life that you want. It is just a matter of choosing what you want. Being okay with what you have to “give up” to have it. And then being satisfied with it once you achieve it.” -Paul Draper
My first theatrical (TV & Film) acting reel!
Thank you to all of the actors and filmmakers involved!
Sean Critchfield, Simon Relph, Danny Trippett, Jaron Briggs, Justin Carter, Michelle Egli Zumbrunnen, Taylor Glenn, Bethany Elsmore Curry, Autumn Applebaum, Bronson Anderson and many more.
Find more videos like this at my new theater page: Click Here
Halloween
This Halloween marks my 34th Birthday and 4 years as a full time independent entertainer and lecturer. Back in October of 2008 I took the bull by the horns, summed up the courage (and willpower) to become my own boss and master of my own destiny. In honor of that anniversary, a brand new “Day in my Life” 2012 video. Who knows what wonderful things we will all be doing next year if we begin our journey today. This is what I have been blessed to be doing this week.
“It is not enough to be busy. So are the ants. The question is: What are we busy about?” -Henry David Thoreau
Welcome to August’s Mysteries of the Mind Newsletter
There just aren’t enough hours in the day to get everything done. Some new research suggests that it’s possible to change that feeling, paradoxically, by spending some of our precious time helping other people.
Cassie Mogilner of the University of Pensilvania, Zoë Chance of the Yale School of Management and Michael Norton of Harvard Business School recently authored the paper “You’ll Feel Less Rushed If You Give Time Away.”
The results: Spending time helping others leaves people feeling as if they have more time, not less.
The research: In a battery of studies, researchers assigned some subjects to help another person-by writing a note to a sick child, for example, or editing a student’s essay-and instructed another group of subjects to do something else. In one study the other group wasted time by counting the letter e‘s in Latin text, in a second study they did something for themselves, and in a third they simply left the academic lab early. In each experiment the people who lent a hand to others felt as if they had more time than the people who did not.
Researchers said that they thought it might be the social connection, the meaning, or the enjoyment associated with helping others that made the study subjects feel more relaxed about their time. But the explanation that emerged in the results is that people who give time feel more capable, confident, and useful. They feel they’ve accomplished something and, therefore, that they can accomplish more in the future. And this self-efficacy makes them feel that time is more expansive.
By giving away time to others, the study found that individuals feel more effective, and that enhances their productivity.
(Certainly if you’re giving so much time away that you’re not able to complete other tasks, then it’s not going to work.)
But the research indicates that giving even a small amount of time to someone else should make you feel you can do more in the time you have. The study showed that it didn’t matter if individuals gave 10 minutes, 30 minutes or a full day, the same positive benefits in productivity and feeling of having more time were realized in just 10 minutes.
“A bone to the dog is not charity. Charity is the bone shared with the dog, when you are just as hungry as the dog.” -Jack London
So many lessons in leadership to be learned! Communication, Motivation and Change.
“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” – John Adams
Commercials
Last month I gave you the preview of my first regional commercial. Union Wireless Cellular uses a little magic to talk about Mystery Fees. UW is the premier telecommunications provider in the Rocky Mountain region and #1 in Yellowstone National Park.
Now you can see both the first and second commercial here.
Your Favorite Sites
What are your favorite sites on the internet to visit other than: Facebook, Amazon, Ebay, Pintrest, twitter. What are some fun sites that I may have never heard of that have great content or great design?
This is a question that I asked some of my friends on facebook this month. Here are their fantastic answers. Enjoy!
“I must study politics and war that my sons may have liberty to study mathematics and philosophy.” – John Adams
Welcome to July’s “Mysteries of the Mind” monthly newsletter!
“The second day of July, 1776, will be the most memorable epoch in the history of America. I am apt to believe that it will be celebrated by succeeding generations as the great anniversary festival. It ought to be commemorated as the day of deliverance, by solemn acts of devotion to God Almighty. It ought to be solemnized with pomp and parade, with shows, games, sports, guns, bells, bonfires, and illuminations, from one end of this continent to the other, from this time forward forever more.” -John Adams
Certainly on July 2nd representatives decided that the colonies would separate from England and be united (verb) States (still independent) of America (the continent) and stand together against the English monarch.
But, they still had many years to go before the creation of a people known as “THE United States of America” (singular).
July 4th 1776 a copy of the Declaration of Independence written by Jefferson, edited by Adams and Franklin and polished by the rest was read outside of the Pennsylvania State House (Independence hall) in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania.
I keep a reproduction on parchment from Independence Square that hangs on my bedroom wall; I look at it every day that I’m in Vegas. It inspires me. Within the leadership, vision, courage and passion of those men we can still learn many lessons that are applicable today. In my corporate lectures, I often use their stories to educate modern managers about change management, corporate culture leadership and individual accountability.
On July 19th 1776 Congress ordered all members sign the Declaration of Independence.
By August 2nd 1776 all but 5 had signed.
Thomas McKean was the final signer; he didn’t add his John Handcock (see what I did there) to the final document until 1781, over 5 years later.
After the declaration was signed, there were still 7 years of battle and smallpox outbreaks to overcome before the end of the Revolutionary War. This was followed by 4-5 years of civil unrest (and several Presidents of these United States – who came before Washington) until the current Constitution was passed in 1787.
However, not everyone agreed. North Carolina didn’t agree to the current constitution until almost a year later and Rhode Island took almost a year and a half after everyone else to join in 1790.
So once the constitution was signed, were these states unified as one nation speaking as one unified voice? No, in 1864 the phrase “United States” was still treated as plural “the United States are”. It didn’t become common to treat it as singular, “the United States is ” until after the end of the Civil War in 1865 almost 90 years after the signing of the Declaration of Independence.
So many lessons in leadership to be learned! Communication, Motivation and Change.
If you work for a company that has sales meetings, corporate retreats, annual trainings etc. – Let whoever organizesthem know about my website www.anthropologyoffice.com . (Probably the VP of HR or the Dir. of Marketing).
It would be fun to bring these interactive sessions & shows to your group. (If you want it to be anonymous, private message me with their contact and either I or one of my managers will “cold call” and follow up)
Looking forward to spending time with you in your city.
“Let us tenderly and kindly cherish, therefore, the means of knowledge. Let us dare to read, think, speak, and write.” – John Adams
My first regional commercial!
My first regional commercial! Union Wireless Cellular uses a little magic to talk about Mystery Fees. UW is the premier telecommunications provider in the Rocky Mountain region and #1 in Yellowstone National Park.
This is the first in a series. More to come next month.
Vegas Mentalist / Magician responds to the New York Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg Soda Ban.
Come to Vegas and enjoy the freedom to drink all of the soda you want!
“When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.”
Welcome to May’s “Mysteries of the Mind” monthly newsletter!
We are just a few days away from Mother’s Day and so I begin with a quote that hung in my mother’s kitchen throughout my childhood on a small painted wooden sign that read “When you come to the end of your rope, tie a knot and hang on.” The sign didn’t give the name of the author, nor did it offer the speech or book it came from. However, the concept of the quote inspired her, and today it and she inspires me.
My mother was a single mom for most of my life and she had the difficult task of raising a precocious son with a love of music and magic.
At one of my early performances at the Magic Castle she was seated next to actor Neil Patrick Harris and with a smile he asked if she performed magic as well. Her answer was “I only do one trick, I make magicians appear” he laughed and she continued “but I’ve only done it once!”
As a girl she worked as a checker in her father’s grocery store, then owned a small museum replica gift shop she called “the Cat’s Meow” before changing her career to work as a CRS Broker in real estate. She worked long hours and focused all of her tenacity and energy on customer service, integrity, self-education and humor.
At night I would catch her reading the encyclopedia from cover to cover. First the A’s and then the B’s and so on. After she had read the entire set, she would start over and read them again. From that set of books alone she walked away with a better education than many people gather over years in university.
At times the housing market was slow and she would stay up late at night working on marketing, advertising and personal newsletters to capture the attention of past clients in the hope that they would use her services again or refer her to their friends. Sometimes, times were so tough and money was so tight that she would tie a knot in the end of her rope and rent rooms in our house to help pay bills and hold on.
I never went hungry. She made sure of that. I never went without shoes or clothes or a roof over my head. She would go hungry first. It was important to her that I graduate from university, she used to say, “An evil government or an evil person can take away your house or your possessions, but they can never take away your mind.” She wanted to make sure that I had a knot to hold onto. At the peak of her career she was bringing home $300,000 per year selling family properties, an incredible sum for a single mother in Utah.
In her final days she taught me her most valuable lesson. “In this life, surround yourself with people of kindness over those who are just rich or beautiful.Because wealth and money are fleeting but kindness is forever. Be a person of kindness and you will never be poor.”
My mother passed away a few days ago (March 28th of 2012) at the age of 55. But through her hard work and dedication to the two of us as a family, she gave me the opportunity for an education, helped me through the struggle of becoming a full time educator and entertainer, and has given me the gift of a knot to hang onto to catch my breath before beginning to climb back up to the top of the rope again.
I don’t know who originally said, “When you get to the end of your rope tie a knot and hang on.” A quick search on the Internet finds Franklin Roosevelt in Kansas 1977 (oddly, 22 years after his death), Ben Franklin, Abraham Lincoln, Thomas Jefferson, the bible, and even Winston Churchill. My roommate Mike Olsen found it possibly first in print in a 1946 article in “California Folklore Quarterly” listed as “a proverb of the American West”.
No matter who said it first, I will always see it in my mind hanging as a small painted wooden sign in my mother’s kitchen. It reminds me to never give up, accept that sometimes life gets rough and when it does, tie a knot, hang on, gather up strength and sum up the courage to once again begin climbing in the direction of your dreams!
Remember to give your mom a big hug this Mother’s Day.
-Paul
Please contact me if you have an office or organization in your area that would like an anthropologist / Vegas Mentalist to present a clean corporate show, or come and lead workshops on communication, motivation and change management!
God brings men into deep waters, not to drown them, but to cleanse them. ~John Aughey
TED is a nonprofit organization devoted to Ideas WorthSpreading. It started in 1984 as a conference bringing together people fromthree worlds: Technology, Entertainment, & Design. Since then its scope has become ever broader. Along with two annual conferences — the TEDConference in Long Beach and Palm Springs each spring, and the TEDGlobal conference in Edinburgh UK each summer — TED includes the award-winning TEDTalks video site, the Open Translation Project and TED Conversations, the inspiring TED Fellows and TEDx programs, as well as the annual TED Prize.
The 48 Hour Film Project is a wild and sleepless weekend in which you and a team make a movie—write, shoot, edit and score it—in just 48 hours.
On Friday night, you get a character, a prop, a line of dialogue and a genre, all to include in your movie. 48 hours later, the movie must be complete. Then it will show at a local theater on the big screen within the week.
In 2011, nearly 60,000 filmmakers made 4,000 films in 96 cities on 6 continents.
For your 4 minutes of viewing pleasure, this years submission from my team: click here
You can also catch some of my past years projects here: click here
“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will spend its whole life believing that it is stupid.” -Albert Einstein
Welcome to February’s “Mysteries of the Mind” monthly newsletter!
A recent study by professor of medicine Donald Redelmeier at the University of Toronto in the Journal of the American Medical Association shows that Oscar winners live nearly four years longer than nominees.
And multiple winners, he says, live an average of six years longer. This echoes broader findings that suggest rich people live longer.
The study claims that the elevated social standing that goes along with getting an Oscar is what may contribute to a longer life. Researchers believe that most Oscar winners live longer because they have an increased level of control over their work and therefore, they’re less stressed. (The most common cause of death among all performers was heart disease.)
Winning directors exceed the aforementioned 4 years of actors and live on average 4.5 years longer than nominated directors.
“Once you’ve got that statuette on your mantel place, it’s an uncontested sign of peer approval that nobody can take away from you, so that any subsequent harsh reviews, it leaves you more resilient,” Redelmeier said. “It doesn’t quite get under your skin. The normal stresses and strains of everyday life do not drag you down.“
Perhaps Oscar winners feel pressure to preserve their image, which could lead to healthier behavior. Oscar winners are also likely to benefit from managers, trainers,personal chefs, and other support staff that help them live a healthy lifestyle. The researchers conclude, “The main implication is that higher status may be linked to lower mortality rates even at very impressive levels of achievement.“
However, my writer friends are the ones who should really be concerned about too much success,Oscar-winning screenwriters usually live 3.6 years less than screenwriters who were just nominated. One possible reason is the different type of lifestyle required for writing screenplays. In other words, while actors spend time working out and eating well, writers are often hunched over their computers pounding out words.
Fascinating findings. I believe, however, that there are many things that we can do with attitude, consciousness and action to create the same benefits of winning an Oscar without actually having to have one of those gold guys on the shelf. Take action today to see yourself as a winner without having to have the approval of others and you will live a longer life because of it!
-Paul
“I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.“ -Michael Jordan
Acknowledge your personal Genius! Life is about the journey and every day is a gift.
“It is better to conquer yourself than to win a thousand battles. Then the victory is yours. It cannot be taken from you, not by angels or by demons, heaven or hell.“ – Buddha
The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore (2011)
As a book lover and classic film buff, this is one that I just need to share.
At Sunday’s Academy Awards it seemed that looking back paid off big as two different homages to silent cinema, The Artist and Hugo, earned five Oscars a piece. Yet these were not the night’s only Oscar-honored tributes to silent film -just the longest. In the often overlooked category of Best Animated Short Film, it was the whimsically titled The Fantastic Flying Books of Mr. Morris Lessmore that explored the possibilities of dialogue-free storytelling to come out on top. Watch for the fun Buster Keaton references.
Success at the Magic Castle!
The Magic Castle is now showcasing my poster in the Gallerie d’ Arte between the dining room and the Palace of Mystery in Hollywood, California.
To get to this moment, it took an amazing number of creative people. Nathan Meier directed the photo, Dave Tada took the photo and edited it, R. Black drew the image and created the concept, everyone on my Facebook page and in my creative group added insight and suggestions that lead to the final design, Norm Nielsen printed the artwork on canvas, Tracy Quattrin framed it, Paula Draper and Shahene Pezeshki provided the funds for the poster production, Jack Goldfinger booked me and Milt Larsen hung it at the Castle. Wow. It takes many creative people to make something good happen. I am so very blessed with the amazing people in my life, you included!
Paul Draper Mysteries of the Mind
Now available: “Mysteries of the Mind” Canvas Giclees Printed in Color with UV inks on museum quality matte canvas.
The price for a 22″ x 34″ is $150 The price for an 11″ x 17″ is $50
