“America has only three cities: New York, San Francisco, and New Orleans. Everywhere else is Cleveland.“ – Tennessee Williams, American playwright
This month, I’ve just returned from New Orleans and am just about to head off to San Francisco. Next up: New York! And lots of Cleveland! Ha!
In truth, every place I travel across America has its own rhythms, cuisines, art, culture, history, and heritage that I love to experience.
New Orleans:
When I began my full-time professional magic career, the Bourbon Street Casino was the first casino in Las Vegas where I had a regular show. The Orleans was the first casino to put my face on the marquee. This week, I had a wonderful sold-out show at a hidden, second-story speakeasy on the actual Bourbon Street in the real New Orleans! Isn’t it beautiful how life comes full circle?
FanX:
I will be appearing again at FanX® Salt Lake Comic Convention™ in September performing, moderating panels, and interviewing celebrities! Will you be there? Watch Here
My Hometown City Hall:
This five-foot-tall image created by artist Jim McGee is now hanging alongside nine other portraits in my hometown city hall.
Each piece of art comes with a statement from the subject about their experiences living in Holladay, Utah.
Visit the art in person or my Facebook page online to find out more!
Opening Act for Houdini:
Artist Alan Firestone hand-painted this stunning alternative history poster! Wow! I’ll be taking this artwork to be framed this week. Thank you, Alan, for the beautiful gift. As we know, Houdini died on Halloween night in 1926 and didn’t make it to the show, so it looks like we will be going on without him! (But I bet you could catch him after the show during our midnight séance!)
Finally, I want you to know that if there is ever anything I can do to make your life better, you can count on me! Just email or call any time.
If you know anyone who could use my services, remember that referrals from friends are over half my business! I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for you.
“Someone is sitting in the shade today because someone planted a tree a long time ago.” – Warren Buffett
MUM & Reviews
I’ve been writing a monthly column for MUM Magazine that goes out to all of the members of the Society of American Magicians. Just sent in my article for September! Have you been reading the column so far? Sign up here
In New Orleans’s famous Jackson Square, I enjoyed this wonderful street performer playing the water-glasses! The last time that I saw him perform was about a block away from this very spot in 2002! Sixteen years later, now in his eighties, he is still living a beautiful life filled with music.
When I first ran across him all those years ago, I was still an anthropologist, and it was a time before the advent of cameras in phones. I took a shot of him with my SLR camera and kept walking. He shouted after me, “So you could afford a camera, film, and development, but you couldn’t afford a dollar for my tip glass? You’ll remember that every time you look at my photo.” Of course, I ran back and tipped him in 2002, and I gave him another $25 during this trip! Watch Here
I Can Read Your Mind
Paul Draper, blindfolded with duct tape, steel coins, and a leather mask, can still peer into your thoughts and read your mind!
Check out this fun, quick clip from a recent corporate performance: Watch Here
TAOM (Texas Association of Magicians)
August 31st – September 3rd in Houston, Texas!: Watch This
If you want even more success, travel, growth, and happiness than you are already enjoying, I can suggest from experience that you deepen your understanding of why empathy works physiologically and how to harness this cool natural tool to live a better life.
In past newsletters, I have shared stories about contagious yawning – the phenomenon that, when we see others yawn, or even read about yawning, causes most neurotypical people to have a tickle of a desire to yawn, as well. This communal yawning is particularly present in younger people who yawn along those individuals they feel some social closeness with. Taking this a step further, contagious yawning also passes inter – species barriers, as domesticated dogs and chimpanzees have been known to catch yawns from one another and even from humans.
It delights me to no end that the “mirror neuron network” – the brain cells that become active when an organism is watching an expression or behavior that they themselves can perform – that plays a part in this is also responsible for the contagious nature of laughter. But watch out! These mirror neurons are also activated by compassion for negative feelings such as fear and sorrow. When we watch a great actor or an individual in our lives display these emotions, our minds mirror their faces, then our faces mirror their faces, and suddenly, we cry in the theater or laugh out loud at the gym because we feel some of what they feel.
Imagine being in the natural world as a preindustrial hunter – gatherer with your tribe. A few members of your tribe yawn late at night, setting off a yawn – fest that lets everyone know it is time for the community to go to sleep – long before the invention of clocks. The next day while hunting, everyone is filled with anxiety and anticipation: will we be able to take down the mammoth, or will the big cats get us first?!? The ability to mirror the emotions on the faces of the older and more experienced hunters can put us in the right mindset for how to work together. We mirror the emotions of our leaders and pass those feelings through the community. When we are in a dangerous situation, tensions can run too high, and a rock falling can set off an enormous fight – or – flight response. Some have speculated that one benefit of laughter is to release that tension within a group and let everyone know that we are safe.
Laughing together, celebrating together: these are amazing tools to bring people together and release tension and fear. Empathy is about feeling what others feel and about others feeling what you feel. Empathy brings us together and makes us more powerful at communicating our needs, working as a team, and sharing common goals. Empathy allows us to simulate others’ affective and cognitive mental states internally. We literally feel what they feel. As humans, we tend to use the self as a reference point to perceive the world and gain information about others’ mental states. When we can simulate others’ emotional states, we experience very special cases of direct empathy.
It’s well – known that the pathways in the brain are malleable. Intense training can cause structural changes in the brain regions that are necessary to produce a desired, trained behavior. Scientists coined the term neuroplasticity to describe the way that the human brain changes in response to our experiential learning. If you want to know what others are thinking and feeling, you can develop greater empathy by training your brain to be better at receiving those messages. Let me know if you want to learn about improving the functionality of your right supramarginal gyrus a portion of the brain crucial in controlling empathy and perceiving others’ emotions, to have greater empathy and a better understanding of those around you. It all starts with learning tools to help with your emotion recognition, perspective – taking, and affective responsiveness.
If, instead, you wish to change the behavior of others, there is no greater truth than the Gandhi quote, “Be the change you want to see in the world.”
For now, just know that any success that I might enjoy now or in the future can be attributed to four things:
Optimism, enthusiasm, empathy, and perseverance.
Keep optimistic, my friends. Things will get better. Tomorrow, the sun will rise, and it will be a new day, ready for you to have a fresh start!
“Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.” – Homer
MUM & Reviews
I’ve been writing a monthly column for MUM Magazine that goes out to all of the members of the Society of American Magicians. Just sent in my article for August! Have you been reading the column so far? Sign up here
I’ve also been enjoying performing in historic theaters all over the United States!
Please let me know if there is a theater in your area that I should reach out to. Here is a recent review:
“What an amazing show! We sold out the house and had to add chairs! The staff and I are still marveling at Paul Draper’s show and sharing our favorite moments. Young and old, our audience was amazed by him. So many positive comments after the show! We are already planning on having him back next season.”
Jason Richards Executive Artistic Director St. Croix Festival Theatre St. Croix Falls, WI
Master Mind
If you missed any of my MASTER MIND series on LIES, PERSUASION, and MEMORY skills that played around the country on ABC, all of the links are now posted and available! Each quick segment is two to four minutes long, and they are all available here:
A Harvard study that began almost 80 years ago shares the secrets of a long and happy life!
It is very rare to see a human study last this long and collect so much amazing data.
When the study started, the researchers interviewed 268 Harvard sophomores in 1938 without any idea where the study would go or who the participants would become.
Some of the subjects went on to be leaders in business, industry, and even one president of the United States!
(Watch the video to find out which one)
The study was later expanded to include a group of economically underprivileged young men from the inner city of Boston who lived in Depression-era tenements without running water. Today, the study also includes the wives and children of many of the original participants, now numbering into thousands of people over multiple decades.
What have they found?
It isn’t cholesterol levels, wealth, or fame that helps to identify who will live the longest, happiest, and healthiest lives. Although determining a single cause for longevity and quality of life wasn’t even an imagined outcome for the original researchers, the current leaders of the study have found that the people who reported and appeared to experience the most satisfaction with their relationships and friendships at age 50 were healthier than their less-satisfied counterparts at 80.
Sadly, on an average day, one in five Americans report feeling lonely – and this fascinating study shows that isolation leads to less happy, less heathy lives in which people lose their brain function more quickly and die earlier.
But there is a solution!
We all feel the importance of interpersonal connection in our hearts, and this study gives us solid data that a vital key to unlocking fulfillment in life is our ability to create social connections with family, friends, and community. If we truly want to live happier, healthier, and longer lives, we need to find ways to replace screen time with quality time. This is about having warm, close, in-person relationships, relationships in which both parties feel that they can really count on one another. Living in high-conflict relationships has been shown to be negatively impact our health, but good relationships can protect our bodies and our brains.
When we retire, we should strive to replace work relationships with new friends. And we should seek to volunteer, join new groups, and continue to participate in the communities we build at all stages of life. When we live lives filled with people who can count on us, and whom we can count on in return, we immediately make the world better.
Since it is one of my major life goals to build healthy relationships with as many people as possible, both on stage and off, this study delights me!
Over 9 million people have watched the recent TED talk associated with this study. If you haven’t, give it a listen!
Then go out and have a moment of genuine connection with a co-worker, family member, or friend today, and let them know that they can count on you! Read & Watch Here
Magic Auction in Vegas
In other news, if you love MAGIC and will be in Las Vegas this month, I will be the auctioneer for the Las Vegas Magic Auction May 21st!
This is my 15th year as auctioneer for this charity event that helps give magic and public-speaking classes to underprivileged kids.
Also, if you ever need an auctioneer for your fundraiser, charity event, or magic convention, I’m available! Here is a small sample of my style from a recent fundraiser in Utah for a Christian school. This was my third year as their auctioneer – if I can help raise over $400 each for a child-sized table and a lemonade stand, just imagine what I can do for you!
If you find yourself in Utah this summer, let me know! The University of Utah has hired me back for another year of 18 shows! Every new student going through student orientation will have a chance to catch a live performance of Mysteries of the Mind! I love being a part of programs like this that unify communities and allow me to bring people together to celebrate themselves and each other.
Finally, I want you to know that if there is ever anything I can do to make your life better, you can count on me! Just email or call any time.
If you know anyone who could use my services, remember that referrals from friends are over half my business! I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for you.
“Yet, taught by time, my heart has learned to glow for other’s good, and melt at other’s woe.” – Homer
Testimonials and Accolades
The Chair of the Institute of Electrical and Electronics Engineers, Clark Nguyen, Ph.D from Berkeley, sent this testimonial after Paul Draper performed at the IEEE MEMS convention in Las Vegas. The audience consisted of 700 IEEE members hailing from Europe, Asia, and North America.
Testimonials from the day chair of the West Palm Beach Young Presidents’ Organization, a member of the Beverly Hills Young Presidents’ Organization, and a partner of a major Hollywood law firm.
If you missed any of my MASTER MIND series on LIES, PERSUASION, and MEMORY skills that played around the country on ABC, all of the links are now posted and available! Each quick segment is two to four minutes long, and they are all available here:
“What lies behind us and what lies before us are tiny matters compared to what lies within us.” -Ralph Waldo Emerson
Welcome to April’s “Mysteries of the Mind” monthly newsletter!
“If civilization is to survive, we must cultivate the science of human relationships: the ability of all peoples, of all kinds, to live together in the same world at peace.“ – Franklin D. Roosevelt
This newsletter is packed with more immediately useful information and powerful tools than any newsletter I have ever sent out. This may be one that you want to bookmark to visit a few times.
MASTER MIND:
If you missed any of my MASTER MIND series on LIES, PERSUASION, and MEMORY skills that played around the country on ABC, all of the links are now posted and available! Each quick segment is two to four minutes long, and they are all available here:
Last month was Women’s History Month, and I was part of an amazing podcast series celebrating women in history whom we have never heard of but need to know about! The podcast is called “What’s Her Name?”. They started their March edition by focusing on the life of the great magician Adelaide Herrmann! I hope you enjoy this as much as I enjoyed the research and interview.
Adelaide Herrmann’s stage act was the most popular in the world in the early 20th century – she was more famous than Houdini! – but she has since been almost entirely forgotten, even by the magic community itself. Learn why her name has been virtually lost to history (it’s not what you think!) and discover the story of this remarkable, courageous, innovative pioneer with a 50-year career in the world of magic. Read
If you love that, you will also enjoy special bonus audio from the interview discussing the progress and problems of women magicians in the magical community today! Listen Here
MAGIC AND GEEKS:
How many of you love Geek & Sundry? It’s the YouTube channel that was started by actress Felicia Day. They now have a big line-up of shows, and I received special permission to film an episode of their show LORE-MASTERS at the Magic Castle: Discovering Magic with Paul W. Draper! Don’t miss the results of Ryan Green’s clandestine trip to the Academy of Magical Arts’s Magic Castle.
Watch Here (You may have to sign up for a 30 day free trial to watch this)
FINE ART:
Artist Jim McGee has been commissioned by my hometown arts council in Holladay, Utah to make ten different five-foot-tall murals of people from this sweet little area. Each of their images will be accompanied by stories from their lives as they relate to the town. My story begins with discovering section 793.8 at the local library! I will share more photos of his art in future newsletters as he sends me updates of his work.
Here is a blog that showcases some of his other murals created for a local Catholic church. See Showcase
FINALLY…
When it is time for your group to gather and celebrate, remember that I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for your referrals.
“Every individual has a place to fill in the world and is important, in some respect, whether he chooses to be so or not.” -Nathaniel Hawthorn
Cosi fan tutte
Cosi fan tutte is now playing at the New York Metropolitan Opera! “A winning cast comes together for Phelim McDermott’s clever vision of Mozart’s comedy about the sexes, set in a carnival-esque environment inspired by 1950s Coney Island. Manipulating the action are the Don Alfonso of Christopher Maltman and the Despina of Tony Award – winner Kelli O’Hara, with Amanda Majeski, Serena Malfi, Ben Bliss, and Adam Plachetka as the pairs of young lovers who test each other’s faithfulness. David Robertson conducts.”
I was a casting consultant on this production thanks to Arthur Lazalde, who is currently the understudy for the Strongman and Tall Man. A few of my talented freak show friends were also cast in this beautiful production.
Great African Americans Magicians
Since college, I have been fascinated by the story of the first American-born magician, Richard Potter. There is a small town named after him in New Hampshire that I recently visited. He is hailed by historians as the newborn nation’s first true celebrity (two hundred years ago!), yet few remember him today. Remarkably, he was also the son of a slave and was still able to draw huge audiences to see his magic and ventriloquism shows in both the North and the South even before the Civil War! I first learned about him in a great book called Magical Heroes: The Lives and Legends of Great African Americans Magicians, but I was delighted to find and purchase a new book about his life during my trip!
Thank you to Andrew Pinard for taking me to the gravesite and regaling me with stories and performances of magic from the turn of the last century!
“We are what we pretend to be, so we must be careful what we pretend to be.” -Kurt Vonnegut
Welcome to October’s “Mysteries of the Mind” monthly newsletter!
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.“ – Steve Martin
Some of the best advice I’ve ever been given by an acting coach:
“Be careful when you choose the character you are going to play. Make sure to choose someone you like, because you are going to be him a lot.” – Timothy Cummings
This newsletter is going to be about making choices concerning who and what you want to be.
We will talk about Halloween costumes gone wrong, the key to booking gigs and the tools you’ll need when you get there, and a little bit about my becoming the presenter I am today!
My Journey
It all began nine years ago on my 30th birthday, Halloween. My character on stage is essentially a heightened version of me. He dresses better, is a little more high-energy, and has more jokes per minute, but is basically a larger-than-life version of who I am on an average, happy day. I started with the design of the set I wanted to perform on – a mix of my classroom at UNLV and my living room. Then, I decided on the clothes I wanted to wear: a three-piece suit! And then I sat (and sat) in that space and in that suit and imagined what I would say if I were given the chance to sit and speak with all of you. Since I began my full-time professional career as a speaker and mentalist following the stock market crash of 2008, my shows, keynotes, and performances have adapted and become more refined. It will be exciting to see what new surprises and opportunities appear in the next year. Hopefully, I’ll have a chance to perform somewhere near you! Let me know if you have any suggestions or leads!
Your Journey
Magicians, speakers, and executives often ask me about how to become successful, and from time to time, they hire me for week-long intensive workshops to help them on their journeys. Enjoy a quick insight into some of the key thoughts I often share here on this topic.
If you are looking to move up in an organization or be hired by a buyer, remember that:
Decision makers need to know you exist It isn’t their job to find you: it is your job to find them and reach out.
They need to know how you fulfill their needs You need to determine their needs and build presentations that will help them succeed.
They need to know that they can afford you Know your market and build a pricing structure with options that they can afford.
And once I am hired and have the opportunity to be in front of a group to present or lead, it is vital that I have the greatest possible chances for success.
It is my job to make sure that when the time comes to speak, I have prepared the client and the venue to make sure that I am:
The tallest thing in the room (stage or platform)
The loudest thing in the room (microphone and speakers)
The brightest thing in the room (lighting)
Close to the audience (in proximity or on screens)
Introduced by a respected person from the group I will be addressing.
Halloween Night:
As some of you know, I am passionate about and Inclusion Center for Community and Justice (ICCJ) and serve as a member of the center’s board of directors. We recently held our annual Humanitarian Social to raise money for education and leadership opportunities to support our diverse community. This led me to consider some of the troubling costumes that I often see – and even some that I wore in my youth before I learned and grew enough to think better of it. NPR’s Code Switch offers a great, helpful response to the concerns of the mother of a young girl who wants to dress up as a Voodoo doll for Halloween. It also links to some powerful articles about other questionable costumes and inappropriately themed parties:
On Halloween, Insensitivity Goes Beyond Kimonos And Black Face Read Here
Please feel free to email me any time, and let’s set up a Skype call if you want to talk person-to-person about what we can do in our own lives to create more opportunities for ourselves and others to grow.
When it is time for your group to gather and celebrate, remember that I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for your referrals.
“Whenever I’m caught between two evils, I take the one I never tried.” -Mae West
Student Orientation
The University of Utah hired me for 14 shows this year as part of their student orientation.
This video was shot at my final performance of the season.
University Demo:Watch Here Shot by: Joshua LeVitre Edited by: Chris Oberle
Salt Lake Comic Con had me interview more celebrities last month! Soon, I will be adding the wonderful Jewel Staite from Firefly to my demo (you can find the full interview online) but until then, enjoy some highlights from a few of my favorite celebrity interviews:
“I’ve learned that people will forget what you said, people will forget what you did, but people will never forget how you made them feel.” -Maya Angelou
Welcome to July’s “Mysteries of the Mind” monthly newsletter!
“Be so good they can’t ignore you.“ – Steve Martin
From castles in London to the Magic Castle in Hollywood, it has been a summer of whirlwind performances!
I’ve performed 14 shows at the University of Utah, 13 shows at the Castle, and my next stop includes 9 shows at a county fair in Butte, Montana.
Thank you for allowing me to travel around the world sharing magic with you. I recently read through every name on this newsletter mailing list, and it is truly thanks to each of you individually – all your help and support – that my rewarding, unconventional life is possible.
One of my favorite hobbies traveling around the U.S. is to listen to different dialects and try to guess where people are from. (It’s even more fun driving between villages in the UK!)
This quiz from the New York Times is based on research by the Harvard Dialect Survey – see if they can figure out where you are from in just twenty-five questions from the words you choose to use! Take Quiz Here
We must each choose every day to be kind and to find ways to reach out to one another. Through my work as an anthropologist, leadership trainer, and entertainer, it has been my life’s goal to bring people together for shared experiences and to build new communities from disparate groups of individuals. I am fascinated by the ways in which we group ourselves, who we choose to associate with, and who we perceive as the “Other.”
In a famous series of experiments conducted in the 1970s, social psychologist Henri Tajfel asked how little it would take to persuade one group of individuals to discriminate against another. The answer was almost nothing. Having assigned boys to two groups based largely on random criteria, he asked them to play a game. Each boy had to decide how many pennies to give to members of his own group and how many to give to members of the other group. Tajfel found that the boys were more generous toward members of their own group, even though the groups had been defined almost arbitrarily: Read: Social Identity Theory Read: Intergroup Discrimination
If this sort of study interests you, you may be interested in my workshops or my Keynote address offerings.
Or you may be interested in helping the Inclusion Center for Community and Justice, a 501c3 charity for whom I serve as an executive board member.
I will also be the Emcee for their Humanitarian Social on September 14th of this year: Read More Here
Please feel free to email me any time, and let’s set up a Skype call if you want to talk person-to-person about what we can do in our own lives to create more opportunities for ourselves and others to grow.
When it is time for your group to gather and celebrate, remember that I am available for corporate banquets, trade shows, morning energizer meetings, and events. I’m never too busy for your referrals.
The Society of American Magicians placed me on the cover of their magazine! I’m so proud to grace the cover of MAGIC * UNITY * MIGHT 100 years after Houdini became President of this, the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world!
The Society of American Magicians placed me on the cover of their magazine! I’m so proud to grace the cover of MAGIC * UNITY * MIGHT 100 years after Houdini became President of this, the oldest fraternal magic organization in the world!
Thank you to past National President David Goodsell for writing a thought-provoking article, and to editor Michael Close for keeping this beautiful magazine alive. (The cover shot was taken by Dave Tada at The Magic Castle)
