The Magician (IV)
True influence lies in succeeding to make others see things the way you want them to, not as the stage imposes them through its appearances.
One day, when I was 12, I went in the backyard of my house. I laid on the very fine and soft grass. I dozed off. And suddenly, on my left, a strange noise caught my attention. In only five steps from me, near the fence, I noticed a bag filled with something. I was less concerned about its content, but rather how it got there. I could swear that it was not there ten minutes early. But there was absolutely no one around to be thrown over the fence.
And then I understood. The bag was there before, only I just have not noticed it. The significance of this thing hit me like a thunderbolt. In a moment I discerned a great truth. What has become one of my biggest secret: the idea of illusion is more important than the illusion itself.
The magic was even true. And I have "learned" how to practice it. I have discovered the key. That was merely a subterfuge, a metaphor to which many magicians had appealed. Like that Coleridge's fantasy. A man is dreaming that pervades the heaven and as evidence is given a flower. When he wakes up, the flower is next to him.
The magic is the fantasy or illusion specially created under the impulse of the moment and which becomes apparently reality.
Leadership: True influence lies in succeeding to make others see things the way you want them to, not as the stage imposes them through its appearances?
The twilight falls. The lights had decreased a bit in intensity. The magician had made again his appearance on the stage. He sat before a wooden table that extended on half of the scene's length. Then, he invited a spectator from the audience to join him. Undoubtedly it was the culmination of the performance.
The young spectator at the instigation of the magician had lain on the table. In a moment they hold peace. The magician was approaching him with resolute steps. The boy kept silence felting like a wave of pride, mixed with fear, was embracing him, at the thought that he lies in the center of a total focus.
Leadership: What is the value of the relevance of perspective and the courage to receive reality without a mask, when appearance gains impact at the expense of clarity of vision?
The magician leaned slightly his head to him as if he had listened carefully to something. Then, slowly, with careful movements of a surgeon removed from a magical box a powder and gave him to smell it. He fastened his eyes with an unnatural glow on a point somewhere above the boy's head and framed some strange words. It was something wizardly in his eyes: something deceptively pushing you to think, to think of magic, to things about you read only in books.
It was a fantasy. The boy felt that he was part of a game. The magician succeeded. He charmed him. Literally. He surrounded him with a hypnotic power until he could no longer move. In an instant, the boy dozed off.
When he woke up from the spell, the magician thanked him for his help and sent him back to his place in the audience. When he reached there the boy stared in awe. On his place was a flower, the same flower which appeared in the dream, while he was asleep.
Truth is the reality that you cannot deny.
Leadership: What do you lose when you give up empathy and dominance in favor of the convention of "magic" over a genuine effort to visualize reality?
The man devoted to his own creation, playing with distinction the repertoire of some less known areas to the general public, is particularly receptive to the attempts of renewing the ranges of emotions that he transmits. In the show that he leads, finds the strength and courage to stimulate the boldest experiences, which if not always lead to the real heights of mastership to shape the reality, have the merit of sincere search for sensational, started from the desire to change a status of things or the mood of the audience.
Leadership starts from there where the artist promotes his "disappearance" and continues there where he determines his "appearance". Leadership ends when things cease to surprise its viewers.
When examining how it works your leadership, have you ever wonder if others see things from your point of view?
To manage to establish a relationship on an emotional level with other people, for networking to be much easier, better and healthier at all the levels, you must convince them that the leadership starts and ends with you. They must feel they are a part of your game, in which, in turn, they have an important role. Literally they have to feel charmed by the image of the game, by its importance, by the thoroughness with which it was done and to wish to attend it, and finally, to be pleasantly surprised of the obtained performances.
Leadership means being willing to use every advantage you have, any stratagem and any way to focus on others. Only then you will they be able to reach them.
Just as a magician realizes in the uttermost his magic numbers and involving the audience in his play and astonishing them with his illusions - so a leader, to win them credibility of people, must throw an absolute bridge with them, involving them carefully in his "show". But for this, the leader needs to cultivate some special personal qualities and use them to persuade people to be influenced by him. He needs to develop those special skills that would lead them to see things as he wants.
Can you create the appearance of a magic with your spell power?
Spell power is related to what you transmit through the illusion called "transfer of personality" when the public strongly watches over you?
The real purpose of a leader is to conclude an unwritten agreement with others regarding the adoption of a common perspective to meet their expectations. Just as a painter sensitizes his viewers through his paintings by creating the impression of natural, so the leader needs to sensitize the people around him by his special qualities and his "spell power" - by creating the appearance of a magic.
You are inventive, innovative, spectacular and especially convincing. That must be people's opinion about you if you want that your "show" of leadership to be considered a complete success. As a leader you must be able to get in people's minds and send them something new to surprise them and that will exceed all their expectations.
Conclusion: The "magic" of a leader lies in his power to convince other people and to get their cooperation in order to achieve that future beneficial to all. In leadership, like a magic show, the effects can be spectacular, but behind these effects stands a colossal working of human resources.
