Beyond The Fingertips

At times, the “problems” in my business or personal life seem so immense. There would be no way to surmount them or even know what steps to take first and move forward.

It’s just me, you see.

I still building the habit of consistently using a to do list to stay organized, balance family/home life and business, and still find ways to stay creative in magic and express oneself. I struggle with it. Something about the chaos of (for lack of a better word) “the artist’s” mind?

It seems logical that when you’re passionate about something you should devour everything you can about it. That might mean reading a lot of magic books, periodicals, and visiting websites. Keeping abreast of the latest new magic product and following people on social media.

But there’s something to be said of leaving the space and looking beyond your tiny world.

Back in NYC, one of my senpai (seniors) once told me that I’d never get good at aikido because I had too many other interests. “You’re into magic, you’re working as an actor, and practicing aikido? You’ll never progress quickly. You have to focus.”

At that precise moment, Sensei joined the conversation and commented, “too much aikido makes a dull person.”

The dojo is where you might “train” yourself but it’s outside of that space where you learn. It’s in the real world where we test the principles and apply them to life. You do your best to see how it all works then come back to the lab, do more research, make course corrections, adjust, and get better at what you do. Then you go and test again.

I also found it laughable that senpai didn’t even consider that any of the other arts or self-imposed courses of study I was interested in didn’t inform and expand on any of the others.

How many artists — painters, musicians, actors, writers, film makers, <fill-in-the-blank> — are solely practicing their art and have nothing else, I wonder?

Right now the competition are all doing the same thing and striving to be first.

What if you were to be the only?