Above photo by Monica Silvestre (@monisilvestre) from Pexels.
Since this is the second entry in this brand new blog, I thought it would be a good idea to share with you why I decided to start it.
Oh, I’ve had blogs before. I’ve written blog entries for SEO results or because I wanted potential clients to see me as the right person to hire. The truth is that I’ve done all sorts of things that I thought I needed to do in order to win the game of “business.”
My goal with this blog is much different. I want to let you in behind the scenes. I want to give you a good look at my world from a backstage view.
I’ll be honest with you…doing this goes very much against my nature. Growing up watching the entertainment industry, specifically the world of magic and magicians, I learned that you have to carefully craft what you allow the world to see. Don’t let anyone see anything that might make you look anything less than perfect.
Interestingly enough, the older I get, the more that life teaches me that the gift I should be sharing is that we are all in this journey together. Being vulnerable, letting you see the creative process I go through, or sharing my frustrations and failures can be far more valuable than just showing you the well-protected finished product.
My friend Stephen Bargatze.
These are all lessons that I learned as I started down the path of becoming a speaker. Years ago, when my friend Stephen Bargatze started trying to convince me to begin telling my story of growing up with Tourette Syndrome, I wouldn’t hear of it. It took him years of chiseling away at me before I opened my mind to the possibility of being willing to talk about it.
You see, in my mind, having Tourette Syndrome was my weakness. It was the one thing I didn’t want to acknowledge because it was so embarrassing. It made me less than everyone else. People would stare at me when I had tics. Every now and then someone would say something to me about my tics while chuckling under their breath. I was the only person I knew that had the weird, uncontrollable disorder.
However, when I started speaking about living with Tourette Syndrome, two things happened. The first thing is that I started to get more comfortable discussing it with people. The second is that by talking about it I gained power over it, instead of feeling like my “embarrassment” had power over me.
The more I spoke to groups about having T.S. the more other people started telling me about the challenges that they were dealing with. Being willing to talk about my neurological disorder made me more human and more like everyone else in my audiences who had problems of their own.
Interestingly enough, magicians also put up impenetrable walls. We don’t let people in. We are supermen and superwomen, who are infallible. Magicians can do things that other people can’t do…and we won’t tell you how we do them.
No wonder I chose to become a magician. I chose to become an archetype who had no flaws. When people saw my magic they wouldn’t point out my flaws or talk about what I couldn’t do, they would instead talk about all the amazing things I could do.
But the world, much like me, has changed. Now, if you want to figure out how a magician does his or her tricks, all you have to do is hop on the internet. There are all sorts of folks who are happy to tell you the secrets. And magicians certainly aren’t flawless.
It was interesting to me that the more vulnerable I was as a speaker, the more I connected with people. Soon, I started looking for ways to connect with my audiences in a personal way, beyond the secrets, when I was performing magic shows, too. I’m still working on that.
The old way of doing things…control everything the world sees. Make sure it is perfect. Show no flaws.
The new way of doing things…let people in to your world. Share your doubts. Show your humanity. Let people backstage.
My plan with this blog is to post articles regularly. How regularly? That remains to be seen. I would love to do it weekly. We’ll just have to wait and see about that.
What am I going to post here? I think it’s going to be a mix of videos and written articles. The subjects will vary wildly based on what I am working on, what I’m thinking about, and what is going on in my world.
I’m definitely going to post motivational and inspirational content. That is just who I am. I believe in it and I want to inspire you and the rest of the world, too.
I’m going to post about magic, too. After all, I love magic - always have, always will.
I’m going to post about some of the places I’ve been. I’ve been fortunate to travel to some cool places and see some incredible things. So this will function partially as a travel blog as well.
After finishing my book two years ago, I thought I was done writing. I’ve recently realized that I’m a writer and I enjoy it. So I’ll be posting some rough drafts of some of my ideas for both fiction and non-fiction here, too.
So, come back from time to time and feel free to take a look around. It’s a pleasure to have you here and I thank you for your interest in what I do and what I think. God bless!
-JM
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