Simon Coronel, World Champion of Magic, Quitting the Day Job and More! | The Tim Ferriss Podcast

Tim Ferriss interviews Simon Coronel, the Australian magician who became world champion at FISM 2022 after a 10-year journey to perfect a single routine. Simon walks through the dramatic story of that win, including the spontaneous crowd riot that mobbed the stage and his uncontrollable sobbing when his name was called for the Grand Prix. He opens up candidly about being neurodivergent (diagnosed with Asperger's, suspected ADHD), how it shaped both his struggles in corporate consulting and his unique strengths as a magician. The conversation covers the history and culture of the Magic Castle, the philosophy and ethics of magic (including why he dislikes mentalism), South Korea as a hotbed of magical innovation, and his decision to leave a stable Accenture job to pursue magic full-time.

• Simon tells the full story of winning the FISM 2022 World Championship, where his routine triggered a spontaneous, uninvited mob of hundreds of magicians rushing the stage to inspect the impossible object he created, becoming a safety risk for organizers.
  00:31:09
• He describes winning the North American close-up championship after six months of crunch, using a caterpillar-to-butterfly analogy: he had 'best caterpillar' but had to liquefy the whole routine into sludge to let it grow wings for FISM.
  00:50:14
• Two days before the final, lying awake with insomnia, Simon suddenly 'sees the Matrix' and conceives a way to combine his two competing methods, then spends his last day and a half blocking through the new version.
  00:57:33
• After tying for first in micro magic, organizers told him to be ready to perform again; he then wins the overall close-up Grand Prix and bursts into uncontrollable, live-streamed 'ugly crying' on stage, deciding deliberately not to hide the tears.
  01:24:25
• Simon publicly reveals for the first time that he was diagnosed with Asperger's Syndrome in his early 20s and suspects an executive-function disorder, and explains he spent his adult life masking it.
  01:39:57
• He delivers a candid critique of mentalism, arguing it's ethically uncomfortable because the performer claims a category of ability (psychic powers) they completely lack, so any relationship built on it rests on a lie.
  01:56:09
• He shares the absurd 2012 method where his friend Dave literally hid under the table during the act to construct props by brute force, which became a running joke among his magic friends.
  01:05:49
• Simon admits that for the 10 years he did magic full-time he mostly earned poverty-line income or below, because financial success in magic comes from networking and client management, not artistic ability.
  01:50:25

• Simon Coronel is legally classified by the United States government as an 'alien of extraordinary ability' for his skills as a magician.
  00:04:41
• The Magic Puzzle Company, for which Simon designs jigsaw puzzles, made the number-one most-backed puzzle of all time on Kickstarter.
  00:05:12
• The Magic Castle once caught fire on Halloween (themed 'Inferno') on the date of Harry Houdini's death; some blamed Houdini's ghost, but it was actually a roofing accident.
  00:11:24
• The Magic Castle had been open seven days a week non-stop for its entire 60-plus-year existence, never able to pause for repairs until the fire.
  00:11:55
• Dai Vernon, who lived at the Magic Castle for decades, pioneered the 'theory of naturalness' and is described as being to magic what Einstein was to physics.
  00:15:00
• The caterpillar liquefies almost entirely into primordial sludge inside the chrysalis yet still retains memories and experience as it reforms into a butterfly.
  00:50:44
• FISM imposes strict time limits on acts: minimum five minutes, maximum ten minutes, with disqualification for going even a second over.
  01:18:12
• At FISM, judges are not obligated to award any prize, including first place or the overall Grand Prix, so a category winner can effectively place at a 'second-place' level and the prizes retain meaning.
  01:20:16
• South Korea is currently the world's hottest magic-innovation scene, partly fueled by Arts Council government funding; the world took notice at FISM 2012 when Yu Ho Jin won the stage Grand Prix.
  01:53:32
• Simon left Accenture after five years (three longer than intended) after reading a palliative-care nurse's article on end-of-life regrets, the top being never trying the thing you always wanted to.
  01:48:19

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