My guest today is Simon Coronel. Simon was originally an IT consultant working at Accenture in Melbourne. But he quit his day job several years ago to become a full-time magician. Simon is now based in Los Angeles and is the winner of more than a dozen international awards, including two separate prizes at the FISM World Championships of Magic and Illusion (which is like the Olympics of Magic) and has appeared on Penn & Teller's TV show Fool Us, where he did in fact manage to fool Penn & Teller. Simon is also one of the few Australians to be regularly invited to perform at the world famous Academy of Magical Arts in Hollywood.
Simon is incredibly eloquent and thoughtful about how he thinks about his profession, and we cover a bunch of different topics, including:
How Simon worked up the courage to go from working as an IT consultant at Accenture to being a full-time magicianWhy Simon doesn’t like goal setting, and what he uses insteadHow Simon prepares for a magic showWhere his ideas for magic tricks come fromSimon’s novel methods for getting audience feedbackWhy Simon thinks about practice in units of minutes, not hoursHow Simon can predict which of his students will become great at magicHow Simon manages his emotional state pre-showHow to get better at almost any skillHow you can differentiate an amateur magician from a professional oneDealing with on stage injuriesHow magic actually works and why it’s harder to “trick” kids than adults.
Find out more about Simon on his website, Facebook and Twitter.
Visit https://www.amanthaimber.com/podcast for full show notes from all episodes.
Get in touch at amantha@inventium.com.au
If you are looking for more tips to improve the way you work, I write a short monthly newsletter that contains three cool things that I have discovered that help me work better, which range from interesting research findings through to gadgets I am loving. You can sign up for that at http://howiwork.co