It's All Magic

That sometimes what business feels like. Two books this fall are using magic as the means to deliver their message. Andy Cohen, new author, ad exectuive and expert magician, has written Follow The Other Hand: A Remarkable Fable That Will Energize Your Business, Profits, and Life. The fable is based around a family's olive oil business. The business is facing challenges as markets changes and doing the same won't work anymore. The main character Jonathan West meet a man named Merlin and the rest is a tale of their journey. Each chapter ends with a magic trick that goes with the lesson. The second book is The Houdini Solution: Put Creativity and Innovation to Work by Thinking. Ernie Schneck is also an ad man and he takes the approach that creativity comes from the limits on a situation.

Think about when Houdini would he locked himself in a box and then submerged it. Schneck says:
If you were faced with drowning, I think the box would have had you paralyzed with fear. I think you would have quickly resigned yourself to your fate, convinced there was no use in trying to find a way out because the glass was too thick, the water too cold, the chains too tight, the locks too well made.

But Houdini had a different approach. Instead, he accepted this circumstances. He accepted the box. He accepted the water inside the box. He accepted the chains and the locks. Rather than allowing his mind to be consumed with the problem, he directed all of his energy toward solving it.