Here’s how it really went down.
Early in my keynote, I asked, “Who here is afraid of public speaking?”
A few hands shot up—including the girl who I chose. I clocked it, tucked it away, and continued on. For the next 90 minutes, I spoke with total calm and confidence. Also early on I gave away a small bit of personal information that I had recently taken up magic tricks. So I had only been learnt the art for 2 years. No hint of nerves. No suggestion of what was coming.
Then—near the end—I paused and said:
“I’m about to attempt a magic trick… something I’ve never done in public before. And to be honest, I’m a bit nervous.”
I looked around the audience really casually and then at her, pointed gently, and said:
“Hey, can you come and give me a hand?”
Something in my written form is missed. You as the reader don’t get to hear my inflection, tone, modulation ect ect but I was not showing much interest in her, it was all about me and my “anxiousness.”
She stood. No name. No prior interaction. Just a brave step forward. That was the turning point for her.
Onstage, I explained to the audience we just needed about 3 minutes and to just wait quietly. And then I whispered away like she was my co-conspirator, and I explained that I was going to attempt to try to levitate the 30kg pot plant… while sitting in a chair, back to the audience, using only my mind. Her job? Help me prep.
First, I asked her to take the small chair and move it to the back corner of the stage, facing the wall.
She then moved the plant to dead centre middle of the front of the stage.
And then we were still in the middle of the stage whispering and I explained what I needed, but it was interspersed with minor comments, I told her my underarms had busted into a sweat. She actually asked me ”are you really doing that, like can you do that?” I assured her I could at home……lol
Then she led me over to the chair. I sat. Facing the wall. She looked like she was checking me for a mobile phone. And I was just breathing. Preparing—looking like someone really unsure of herself.
And that’s when I gave her the spotlight.
She said “ok I have checked and there is no remote control hidden in her pockets, no mobile phone, nothing.”
I asked her to help by addressing the audience directly. Her instructions were clear:
• Ask three questions, one by one, slowly.
• Wait after each—give me time to “mentally prepare.”
• Then ask a fourth question that required the audience to raise their hands and estimate a percentage—so she’d have to do a bit of mental maths and report back.
The task was structured. Purposeful. Just enough to pull her out of fear and into focus.
Truthfully. I didn’t turn my head at all. However I am almost certain when she announced that I had no devices on me to levitate the pot plant I think by her voice her posture was pretty straight. Her voice continued to strengthen.
She forgot to be afraid.
Ok, I may have had a little bit of a smug/proud smile covertly hidden. Shared with a back wall.
I stayed “in character,” still sitting, still “mentally preparing,” until she had asked all four questions.
And by then?
She was standing onstage, confidently addressing a live audience.
And that was when I got up turned around, walking towards her and getting the audience who fairly quickly began to realise what had just happened.
“Congrats girl – I believe you did the very thing you said you not only feared, but had refused to do.”
Damn I was closer than I thought. Really good riddle though.
Well done to anyone that solved it, kinda jealous too!!