Compartmentalize

It was a great day…financially.

I received a check in the mail for $1297 about three weeks sooner than I was expecting.

Then a longtime school client called me for a last-minute end-of-the-year booking for $897.

Then a library I hadn’t heard from called me for a $350 booking.

I sold several of my new release, Serendipity.

All of this was great news as typically this is the time of year when bookings slow down for me. School is only a week or two away from summer break. Most libraries have filled their summer reading program schedule.

So, this day was unexpectedly profitable.

I struggled to smile into my webcam as I consulted with a monthly client, a fellow magician who paid me each month to do copywriting for his business.

Why was I struggling to stay engaged?

That morning I received news that Sophie, my beloved dog of 13 years, is in the beginning stages of kidney failure.

To say I was devastated is a severe understatement.

To make matters even more challenging, I’m busier than ever with shows all week. The last thing I feel like doing is going on stage and being charming.

It’s been a rough week.

But it gives me the opportunity to share with you one of the most valuable skills you can have as a professional magician.

It’s the ability to compartmentalize. Separate things in your mind and forge ahead.

Here’s the brutal truth of being your own boss: There will always be awful things that come your way. It’s simply the nature of being your own boss.

If you currently have a day job and decide to keep it yet book magic shows on the side, that’s a choice.

One magician I know recently decided he was going to keep his day job (well, night job) because the health insurance was so good.

Not everyone has the same goal as me.

I always wanted to be my own boss. And if you are your own boss, you have to keep going, even when things suck.

The bills keep coming, financial responsibilities don’t go away.

Unless you’re independently wealthy and have a nice nest egg to lean on for a while, you gotta keep working.

Truthfully, I have enough in my business savings to let me coast for over a year. So does my wife for her business. Between the two of us, we could take the next 18 months off and not do a thing.

But after the pandemic, I’ll never feel secure doing that.

So how do you do it? How do you separate yourself from whatever awfulness hits?

I have a couple of answers. If it’s something catastrophic like a death in the family, you need to grieve. Mental health should trump all.

But in regular, day-to-day life, when the stuff hits the fan, I have a simple NLP technique that has worked for me and may for you.

If you’re unfamiliar with NLP, it stands for Neuro-Linguistic Programming. It’s the practice of using language to help program the mind.

A simple example is your name.

Your name is simply another in an endless line of letters strung together to form a word.

Yet when you were very young, your parents kept using your name when talking to you. Eventually, you learned to associate those letters as part of you, part of your identity.

Your parents set up an anchor. An external trigger that causes you to think, feel, or otherwise respond in some way.

In this case, your name is anchored to your sense of self.

So that’s NLP.

Here’s how to use it to compartmentalize.

Use a process known as Disassociation. It’s a way of separating yourself from something.

When we associate into something, it’s like we are experiencing it in the first person, with it happening around us.

To disassociate, we imagine ourselves separate from whatever is going on. When I had my hypnosis clinic open, I guided my phobia clients through a technique that used disassociation as one of its tools.

Imagine yourself watching whatever is going on like you’re watching a movie in a theater.

You can disassociate further by imagining yourself further away from the screen. Or even disassociating yourself further so you’re up in the projection booth looking down at yourself in the theater, and that self is the one watching whatever is happening on the screen.

You can then make the movie run in black and white. And backward.

I don’t have the space in this newsletter to get into the neuroscience of everything, but simple techniques like this break up the emotional intensity of whatever is happening.

In the case of a phobia, using variations of this technique, I’ve helped people leave behind the emotional trauma of very bad things that happened decades ago.

I do not say that to brag, only to impress upon you the ability to use simple techniques like this to get yourself through a bad day when you’d rather be anywhere other than performing but you gotta do it to pay the mortgage.

I will end this week’s newsletter with an apology if I miss any typos. Normally I type this newsletter in my office where I have two giant computer screens.

Today I’m typing it on my laptop so I can be close to Sophie as she naps on the couch.

 
I hope you all have a great week. Thank you to all of you who invested in Serendipity. It’s a great routine I’m sure you’ll get a lot of use.

--Cris

P.S. By the way…whenever you’re ready, here are 5 ways I can help you grow your magic business to book more shows at higher fees:

 
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4. Work with me privately.

 
Need help in multiple areas? I can help you with your website, direct mail, email, or other marketing strategies. I also offer consulting services for crafting magic routines or even entire shows. Want to find out more? Shoot me an email at cris@theprofessionalmagicianclubpro.com.

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I have several professional routines, marketing courses, books, and other resources to boost your shows and make booking shows easier and more profitable. Check out my line of products HERE.

To find out more how I can help you book more shows at higher fees, click the button below to see my list of services.

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