Richard Wiseman's Blog

Here is a quick and easy way of boosting your motivation….

There was a long running rivalry between tennis stars Andy Murray and Novak Djokovic. In 2012, they faced one another in the final of the US Open. Murray took the first two sets but Djokovic battled back to win the next two sets. Murray took a toilet break and, according to several reports, looked in the bathroom mirror and shouted “You are not losing this match…you are not going to let this one slip’ Murray then walked back out and faced his opponent for the deciding set.

In 2014, psychologist Sanda Dolcos (University of Illinois) carried out some great experiments exploring how motivation is affected by whether we talk to ourselves in either the first or second person.

In one study, she had people try to complete some difficult anagrams. Some participants were asked to motivate themselves by using first-person sentences (“I can do it”) whilst others gave themselves a second-person pep talk (“You can do it”). Those using the ‘you’ word completed far more anagrams than those using the ‘I’ word. Dolcos then asked other people to motivate themselves to exercise more in either the first person (‘I should go for a run now’) or second person (’You must go to the gym’). Those using the ‘you’ word ended up feeling far more positive about going for a run or visiting a gym, and planned to take more exercise over the coming weeks.

Whatever the explanation, it is a simple but effective shortcut to motivation. And it worked for Andy Murray because he broke Djokovic’s serve, won the shortest set of the match, and emerged victorious.

When you are in need of some fast acting and powerful motivation, talk to yourself using the magic ‘you’ word. Tell yourself that ‘you can do it’, that ‘you’ love whatever it is that you have to do, and that ‘you’ will make a success of it. You may not end up winning the US Open, but you will discover how just one word has the power to motivate and energise.

Dolcos, S., & Albarracin, D. (2014). The inner speech of behavioral regulation: Intentions and task performance strengthen when you talk to yourself as a You. European Journal of Social Psychology, 44(6), 636–642.

I recently ran a session at the University of Hertfordshire on the 7 factors that I believe underpin an impactful presentation.

While preparing, I was reminded of a conversation I had with a hugely knowledgeable director who had worked with many magicians. He explained that magicians often weaken their performances by letting the audience experience the magic at different times.

Imagine that a magician drops an apple into a box and then tips it forward to show that the apple has vanished. The box must be turned from side to side so that everyone in the audience can see inside. As a result, each person experiences the disappearance at a slightly different moment and the impact is diluted.

Now imagine a different approach. The apple goes into the box. The lid is pulled off and all four sides drop down simultaneously. This time, everyone sees the disappearance at the same time and the reaction is far stronger.

The same principle applies to talks. Some years ago, I ran a year-long experiment with the British Science Association about investing on the FTSE 100. We gave a notional £5,000 to a regular investor, a financial astrologer (who invested based on company birth dates) and a four-year-old child who selected shares at random!

If I simply show the final graph, people in the audience interpret it at different speeds. Some spot the outcome instantly. Others take longer. The moment fragments.

Instead, I build it step by step. First, I show a blank graph and explain the two axes.

Then I reveal that both the professional investor and the financial astrologer lost money.

Finally, I reveal that the four-year-old random share picker outperformed them both!

Now the entire audience sees the result at the same moment — and reacts together. That shared moment creates energy.

It’s a simple idea:

Don’t just reveal information. Orchestrate the moment of discovery.

If you want bigger reactions, stronger engagement, and more memorable talks, make sure your audience experiences the key moments together.

This week we have a quick quiz to test your understanding of sleep and dreaming. Please decide whether each of the following 7 statements are TRUE or FALSE. Here we go….

1) When I am asleep, my brain switches off.

2) I can learn to function well on less sleep.

3) Napping is a sign of laziness.

4) Dreams consist of meaningless thoughts and images.

5) A small amount of alcohol before bedtime improves sleep quality.

6) I can catch up on my lost sleep at the weekend.

7) Eating cheese just before you go to bed gives you nightmares

OK, here are the answers…..

1) When I am asleep, my brain switches off: Nope. When you fall asleep, your sense of self-awareness shuts down, but your brain remains highly active and carries out tasks that are essential for your wellbeing.

2) I can learn to function well on less sleep: Nope. Sleep is a biological need. You can force yourself to sleep less, but you will not be fully rested, and your thoughts, feelings and behaviour will be impaired.

3) Napping is a sign of laziness: Nope. Your circadian rhythm make you sleepy towards the middle of the afternoon, and so napping is natural and makes you more alert, creative, and productive.

4) Dreams consist of meaningless thoughts and images: Nope. During dreaming your brain is often working through your concerns, and so dreams can provide an insight into your worries and help come up with innovative solutions.

5) A small amount of alcohol before bedtime improves sleep quality: Nope. A nightcap can help you to fall asleep, but also causes you to spend less time in restorative deep sleep and having fewer dreams.

6) I can catch up on my lost sleep at the weekend: Nope. When you fail to get enough sleep you develop a sleep debt. Spending more time in bed for a day will help but won’t fully restore you for the coming week.

7) Eating cheese just before you go to bed gives you nightmares: Nope. The British Cheese Board asked 200 volunteers to spend a week eating some cheese before going to sleep and to report their dreams in the morning. None of them had nightmares.

So there we go. They are all myths! How did you score?

A few years ago I wrote Night School – one of the first modern-day books to examined the science behind sleep and dreaming. In a forthcoming blog post I will review some tips and tricks for making the most of the night. Meanwhile, what are your top hints and tips for improving your sleep and learning from your dreams?

I am a huge fan of Dale Carnegie and mention him in pretty much every interview I give. Carnegie was American, born in 1888, raised on a farm, and wrote one of the greatest self-help books of all time, How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book has now sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

I first came across his work when I was about 10 years old and read this book on showmanship and presentation….

According to Edward Maurice, it’s helpful if magicians are likeable (who knew!), so he recommended that they read Carnegie’s book. I still have my original copy, and it’s covered in my notes and highlights.

One of my favourite — and wonderfully simple — pieces of advice is to smile more. Since the book was written, psychologists have discovered lots about the power of smiling. There is evidence that forcing your face into a smile makes you feel better (known as the facial feedback hypothesis). In addition, it often elicits a smile in return and, in doing so, makes others feel good too. As a result, people enjoy being around you. But, as Carnegie says, it must be a genuine smile, as fake grins look odd and are ineffective. Try it the next time you meet someone, answer the telephone, or open your front door. It makes a real difference.

In another section of the book, Carnegie tells an anecdote about a parent whose son went to university but never replied to their letters. To illustrate the importance of seeing a situation from another person’s point of view, Carnegie advised the parent to write a letter saying that they had enclosed a cheque — but to leave out the cheque. The son replied instantly.

Then there is the power of reminding yourself how much the people in your life mean to you. Carnegie once asked the great stage illusionist Howard Thurston about the secret of his success. Thurston explained that before he walked on stage, he always reminded himself that the audience had been kind enough to come and see him. Standing in the wings, he would repeat the phrase, “I love my audience. I love my audience.” He then walked out into the spotlight with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.

This is not the only link between Carnegie and magic. Dai Vernon was a hugely influential exponent of close-up magic and, in his early days, billed himself as Dale Vernon because of the success of Dale Carnegie (The Vernon Touch, Genii, April 1973). In addition, in 1947 Carnegie was a VIP guest at the Magicians’ Guild Banquet Show in New York. Here is a rare photo of the great author standing with several famous magicians of the day (from Conjurers Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4; courtesy of the brilliant Lybrary.com).

Front row (left to right): Elsie Hardeen, Dell O’Dell, Gladys Hardeen, J. J. Proskauer
Back row: E. W. Dart, Terry Lynn, Al Flosso, Mickey MacDougall, Al Baker, Warren Simms, Dale Carnegie, Max Holden, Jacob Daley

If you don’t have a copy, go and get How to Win Friends and Influence People. Some of the language is dated now, but the thinking is still excellent. Oh, and there is an excellent biography of Carnegie by Steven Watts here.

I am a huge fan of Dale Carnegie and mention him in pretty much every interview I give. Carnegie was American, born in 1888, raised on a farm, and wrote one of the greatest self-help books of all time, How to Win Friends and Influence People. The book has now sold over 30 million copies worldwide.

I first came across his work when I was about 10 years old and read this book on showmanship and presentation….

According to Edward Maurice, it’s helpful if magicians are likeable (who knew!), so he recommended that they read Carnegie’s book. I still have my original copy, and it’s covered in my notes and highlights.

One of my favourite — and wonderfully simple — pieces of advice is to smile more. Since the book was written, psychologists have discovered lots about the power of smiling. There is evidence that forcing your face into a smile makes you feel better (known as the facial feedback hypothesis). In addition, it often elicits a smile in return and, in doing so, makes others feel good too. As a result, people enjoy being around you. But, as Carnegie says, it must be a genuine smile, as fake grins look odd and are ineffective. Try it the next time you meet someone, answer the telephone, or open your front door. It makes a real difference.

In another section of the book, Carnegie tells an anecdote about a parent whose son went to university but never replied to their letters. To illustrate the importance of seeing a situation from another person’s point of view, Carnegie advised the parent to write a letter saying that they had enclosed a cheque — but to leave out the cheque. The son replied instantly.

Then there is the power of reminding yourself how much the people in your life mean to you. Carnegie once asked the great stage illusionist Howard Thurston about the secret of his success. Thurston explained that before he walked on stage, he always reminded himself that the audience had been kind enough to come and see him. Standing in the wings, he would repeat the phrase, “I love my audience. I love my audience.” He then walked out into the spotlight with a smile on his face and a spring in his step.

This is not the only link between Carnegie and magic. Dai Vernon was a hugely influential exponent of close-up magic and, in his early days, billed himself as Dale Vernon because of the success of Dale Carnegie (The Vernon Touch, Genii, April 1973). In addition, in 1947 Carnegie was a VIP guest at the Magicians’ Guild Banquet Show in New York. Here is a rare photo of the great author standing with several famous magicians of the day (from Conjurers Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 4; courtesy of the brilliant Lybrary.com).

Front row (left to right): Elsie Hardeen, Dell O’Dell, Gladys Hardeen, J. J. Proskauer
Back row: E. W. Dart, Terry Lynn, Al Flosso, Mickey MacDougall, Al Baker, Warren Simms, Dale Carnegie, Max Holden, Jacob Daley

If you don’t have a copy, go and get How to Win Friends and Influence People. Some of the language is dated now, but the thinking is still excellent. Oh, and there is an excellent biography of Carnegie by Steven Watts here.

It’s time for some obscure magic and music hall history.

I’m a fan of a remarkable Scottish conjurer called Harry Marvello. He was performing during the early 1900s and built a theatre in Edinburgh that is now an amusement arcade. I have a previous post on Marvello here and have just written a long article about him for a magic history magazine called Gibecière (the issue is out soon).

Marvello was friends with an Edinburgh publican named Peter Higgins. Higgins owned two bars, one by the Empire Palace Theatre and another in a nearby seaside town. He kept scrapbooks in both bars and loved to ask performers to draw and write in them. I discovered that these scrapbooks have survived and are now in the National Library of Scotland! I went along and they are full of details about amazing acts…..

I mean, who can forget gymnasts The Great Fredericks Demon Kings (most people it seems because I can’t find out anything about them)…
Then we have the living poodle, Arthur Lupino. Arthur was apparently a great animal impersonator and James Barrie had him play Nana the dog in the premiere of Peter Pan in 1904.
There is also a very rare notice announcing the death of the magician, The Great Lafayette. Lafayette died in a terrible theatre fire in Edinburgh 1911, and is the only magician (and possibly person) to be cremated twice. It’s a long story and you can read about it on the web. The tragedy was due to a faulty fire curtain and as a result, theatres now have to raise and lower their fire curtain in front of every audience to show that it works properly. If you have seen that happen, it is a direct result of The Great Lafayette.Also, there was Cris The Demon Ventriloquist (again, I couldn’t find out anything about him or his act)…
And finally, the great man himself – Peter Higgins sitting with the legendary Scottish music hall star, Harry Lauder.
So there we go. I love the idea that over a century ago, performers sat around making their mark in this book, and now their work can be seen all over the world! If you have any thoughts, or information, about these lost acts, please let me know!

I am staging a one-off performance of the World’s Most Boring Card Trick at Magic Fest in Edinburgh on the 27th December. Tickets here. Anyway, I digress. I have long been fascinated by the psychology of humour and once carried out a project called LaughLab. Billed as the search for the world’s funniest joke, over 350,000 people submitted their top gags to our website and rated the jokes sent in by others. We ended up with around 40,000 jokes and you can read the winning entry here (there is also a free download of 1000 jokes from the project).

It was a great project and is still quoted by media around the world. I ended up dressing as a giant chicken, interviewing a clown on Freud’s couch, and brain scanning someone listening to jokes.

A few years ago, I came up with a theory about Christmas cracker jokes. They tend to be short and not very funny, and it occurred to me that this is a brilliant idea. Why? Because if the joke’s good but you don’t get a laugh, then it’s your problem. However, if the joke’s bad and you don’t get a laugh, then you can blame your material! So, cracker jokes don’t embarrass anyone. Not only that, but the resulting groan binds people together. I love it when the psychology of everyday life turns out to be more complex and interesting than it first appears! As comedian and musician Victor Borge once said, humour is often the shortest distance between people.

I recently went through the LaughLab database and pulled out some cracker jokes to make your groan and bond:

– What kind of murderer has fibre? A cereal killer.

– What do you call a fly with no wings? A walk.

– What lies on the bottom of the ocean and shakes? A nervous wreck.

– Two cows are in a field. One cow: “moo”. Other cow: “I was going to say that”

– What did the landlord say as he threw Shakespeare out of his pub? “You’re Bard!”

– Two aerials got married. The ceremony was rubbish but the reception was brilliant.

– What do you call a boomerang that doesn’t come back? A stick.

– A skeleton walks into a pub and orders a pint of beer and a mop.

The BBC have just produced an article about it all and were kind enough to interview me about my theory here.

Does the theory resonate with you? What’s your favourite cracker joke?

Have a good break!

First, a quick announcement – I will be presenting a special, one-off, performance of The World’s Most Boring Card Trick at the Edinburgh MagiFest this year. At a time when everyone is trying to get your attention, this unusual show is designed to be dull. Have you got what it takes to sit through the most tedious show ever and receive a certificate verifying your extraordinary willpower? You can leave anytime, and success is an empty auditorium.  I rarely perform this show, and so an excited and delighted to be presenting it at the festival. Details here.

Now for the story. When I was a kid, I was fascinated by a magazine called World of Wonder (WoW). Each week it contained a great mix of history, science, geography and much more, and all the stories were illustrated with wonderful images. I was especially delighted when WoW ran a multi-part series on magicians, featuring some of the biggest names in the business. My favourite story by far was based around the great Danish-American illusionist Dante, and the huge, colourful, double page spread became etched into my mind.

A few years ago, I wrote to the owners of WoW, asking if they had the original artwork from the Dante article. They kindly replied, explaining that the piece had been lost in the mists of time. And that was that.

Then, in July I attended the huge magic convention in Italy called FISM. I was walking past one of the stalls that had magic stuff for sale, and noticed an old Dutch edition of WoW containing the Dante spread. I explained how the piece played a key role in my childhood, and was astonished when the seller reached under his table and pulled out the original artwork! Apparently, he had picked it up in a Parisian flea market many, many, years ago! The chances!

I snapped it up and it now has pride of place on my wall (special thanks to illusion builder Thomas Moore for helping to make it all happen!). My pal Chris Power made some enquirers and thinks that the art was drawn by Eustaquio Segrelles, but any additional information about the illustration is more than welcome.

So there you go – some real magic from a magic convention!

A few months ago, I was invited to present a series of events at FISM — often referred to as the Olympics of Magic. It’s a gathering of over 2,500 magicians from around the world, featuring days of intense magic competitions alongside workshops, lectures, and performances. This year, the event was organised by my friend Walter Rolfo, who kindly asked me to deliver a lecture, interview several well-known performers — including quick-change artist Arturo Brachetti, Luis de Matos, Mac King, and Steven Frayne — and also stage my show Experimental.

It was an incredible week. Magic is a small, strange, and tightly-knit community, and it was a joy to reconnect with people I hadn’t seen in years. One highlight was a great workshop on acting and magic by actor Steve Valentine. Steve and I first crossed paths back in 1983 when we were both competing in The Magic Circle’s Young Magician of the Year. Neither of us won; that honour (quite rightly) went to Richard Cadell—now a regular performer alongside Sooty and Sweep.

My show Experimental is somewhat unusual because there’s no performer. Instead, the audience takes part in a series of illusions and psychological experiments by following prompts on a large screen at the front of the room. Each show is different and shaped entirely by the people in the room. I sit quietly at the back, guiding the experience by choosing the order of the material.

The idea for Experimental came to me years ago, as I was thinking about why magicians perform. It struck me that if a performer genuinely wants to entertain their audience, their words and actions tend to come from a place of generosity. As I like to say, their feet will be pointing in the right direction and so any steps that they take will tend to be positive. But if they come on stage purely to feed their own ego, the audience take second place and the show usually suffers. Removing the performer entirely forced me to design an experience that prioritises the audience from start to finish.

After each performance at FISM, we held a Q&A with the audience. Time and again, I was reminded of something the legendary illusionist David Berglas once told me. One night we were flipping through an old photo album when we came across a picture of him, aged about eight, putting on some kind of show. I asked if it was his first performance. He paused and said, “No. That wasn’t a performance—that was me showing off.”

Curious, I asked him what the difference was. His answer has always stuck in my mind: “Performing is for the good of the audience. Showing off is for the good of the performer.”

I have always thought that there was an interesting life lesson there for everyone, and it was nice to spend many a happy hour chatting about the idea at the amazing and unique event that is FISM.  

I am going to perform a new show at the 2025 Edinburgh Fringe Festival called ‘The World’s Most Boring Card Trick.’

The show has its roots in the notion that creativity often comes from doing the opposite to everyone else. Almost every Festival performer strives to create an interesting show, and so I have put together a genuinely dull offering. Because of this, I am urging people not to attend and telling anyone who does turn up that they can leave at any point. Everyone who displays extraordinary willpower and stays until the end receives a rare certificate of completion.  Do you have what it takes to endure the show and earn your certificate?  

I have identified the seven steps that are central to almost every card trick and devised the most boring version of each stage. Along the way, we explore the psychology of boredom, examine why it is such a most powerful emotion, and discover how our need for constant stimulation is destroying the world.

It will seem like the longest show on the Fringe and success is an empty auditorium. There will only be one performance of the show (20th August, 15.25 in the Voodoo Rooms). If you want to put your willpower to the test and experience a highly unusual show, please come along!

As ever with my Fringe shows, it’s part of PBH’s wonderful Free Fringe, and so seats are allocated on a ‘first come, first served’ basis. I look forward to seeing you there and us facing boredom together.