3min chapter

#679: Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic — Quitting the Day Job, The Delights of the Magic Castle, Finding Glitches in Reality, Learning How to Use Your Own Brain, and Worshiping at the Altar of Wonder

The Tim Ferriss Show

notes

CHAPTER

How to Judge Art

The judges don't have to award any of the prizes. The way it works is they award a first, second, and third prize in each of these eight categories. You could have the top winner in a category get the equivalent of second place. No one gets first. That has happened many times in its history. They try to make it mean something over the decades. I really respect that.

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Transcript

Episode notes

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Simon Coronel (simoncoronel.com) is legally classified as an “Alien of Extraordinary Ability” by the United States Government for his skills as a magician and illusionist. Simon discovered magic in 1999 as a first-year student at Melbourne University. He then spent five years working full time in management consulting while juggling his “secret” performance career.

He’s currently a jigsaw puzzle designer for The Magic Puzzle Company, which has the #1-backed puzzle on Kickstarter of all time, and is a regular performer at the Magic Castle in Hollywood.

Simon has appeared twice on the hit TV show Penn & Teller: Fool Us. He has won over a dozen international awards for magic, including being crowned the World Champion of Magic in 2022 at FISM, the Olympics of magic.

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[06:12] Radical earliness.

[08:23] The Magic Castle.

[17:27] Catching the magic bug at age 18.

[19:56] Acknowledging neurodivergence.

[28:16] Glitches in Reality.

[30:53] The road to winning the 2022 FISM World Championship of Magic.

[53:04] Workshopping out the kinks before the competition.

[57:59] The muse and the Shoot seal of approval.

[1:01:31] Gauging audience perception and finding balance pre-game.

[1:05:49] The big day.

[1:18:45] Categories of stage magic.

[1:20:15] Ugly crying through victory.