In the early days of Mind2Mind, we operated under a misconception common to our industry: We believed the client was paying us to fool them. We treated mentalism as a logic puzzle, a battle of wits where we were the setters and the audience were the solvers. If they couldn’t figure it out, we won.
It took us years, along with some hard truths from outside directors, to realize that in the high-ticket corporate world, nobody pays premium rates for a puzzle. A puzzle is intellectual; it’s cold. What clients actually invest in is connection. They don’t want a performer to stand on stage and shout, “Look how clever I am.” They want someone to hold up a mirror so they can see something profound about themselves.
Deception is cheap. Connection is the real currency. Here is how we reengineered our act to stop hunting for “gotcha” moments and start building shared miracles.