Creating Business Magic. David Morey
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Copyright © 2018 David Morey, Eugene Burger & John E. McLaughlin.
Published by Mango Publishing Group, a division of Mango Media Inc.
Cover and Layout Design: Elina Diaz
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Creating Business Magic: How the Power of Magic Can Inspire, Innovate, and Revolutionize Your Business
Library of Congress Cataloging
ISBN: (print) 978-1-63353-734-7 (ebook) 978-1-63353-735-4
Library of Congress Control Number: 2018930404
BISAC category code: BUS007000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Business Communication / General, BUS063000 BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Strategic Planning
Printed in the United States of America
This is one of Eugene Burger's very final projects and books on magic. We did not dream this would be the case when we together embarked on this project years ago, but he journeyed to what he himself called the “ultimate capital M Mystery of life” on August 8, 2017, while this work was nearing completion. For the sake of historical accuracy, references in this text to our magical mentor, our coauthor, and our friend are in the past tense. Of course, Eugene will always be with us and with everyone who loves magic. His tense is eternal. And we hereby dedicate our book—so much of which is also his book—to:
Eugene Burger, June 1, 1939–August 8, 2017
Contents
Preface: Who Should Read This Book?
Introduction: What Is a Magician?
The First Strategy: Forget Reality
The Second Strategy: Reboot Aspiration
The Third Strategy: Imagine First
The Fourth Strategy: Disorganize Innovation
The Fifth Strategy: Cheat Preemptively
The Sixth Strategy: Redirect Your Audience
The Seventh Strategy: Grab the Dialogue
The Eighth Strategy: Overcome and Prevail
The Ninth Strategy: Empower Belief
Conclusion: Play Offense with Your Imagination
This book represents our journey to understand how magicians think and to apply this way of thinking to the challenges of business and life. Along this path, we are far from alone. We thank Alan Axelrod for his research and editorial legerdemain, Larry Hass for his inspirational contributions, Jeff McBride, Bob Fitch, Ross Johnson, Johnny Thompson, Tony Clark, and Max Maven for their unparalleled magical contributions, and Scott Miller for his one-of-a-kind strategic conjuring. We thank Jerry Wind, Kabir Khan, Bryce Kuhlman, Joe Michenfelder, Constance Warner, Ira Callier, Edgar House, Craig Helsing, Robert Charles, Michael Burke, Simone Marron, Stan Sieler, Jim Levine, and our marvelous Mango editor, Gary M. Krebs of GMK Writing and Editing, Inc., for their ongoing magical inputs.
Finally, John McLaughlin thanks his wife, Charlee, a woman of extraordinary patience and fortitude, and David Morey, too, thanks Xie Zheng for her own very special magic.
The book you hold in your hand is unique. It demonstrates more powerfully than anything I’ve seen that there is a magician inside each of us. It explains how thinking like a magician can take you and your endeavors to new heights of success.
A political and corporate strategist who has advised winning global presidential campaigns and Fortune 100 CEOs, the former Acting Director of the CIA, and one of magic’s true legends combine their perspectives to illuminate how the power of magic can ignite your own imagination, power you through barriers, and get way ahead of any competition. Fellow magicians David Morey, John McLaughlin, and Eugene Burger take everything they’ve learned from magic and other elements of their professional lives and pack it into a set of key strategies for meeting the special challenges in today’s business world—and other realms as well. It is a magically powerful and important read.
Creating Business Magic takes the reader along a path of genuinely magical thinking. Beginning with imagination, the authors illuminate the power of perception, ways to innovate, to think out of the box, break down conceptual barriers and, finally, bring out the magician inside all of us. These are the essential ingredients of every powerful magic performance, and here the authors take