Behind the Scenes: Innate Talent or Hard Work?

When we attend a performance by a mentalist, our jaws drop in amazement as our minds try to grasp what just happened before our eyes. The tricks, techniques, and actions performed by the mentalist often appear astounding on stage. But behind every illusion, trick, and moment in the show lie countless hours of practice and long days away from the stage and spotlight. Being a mentalist is far more arduous than most people imagine, as beyond the extensive training hours, there lies a profound and genuine love for the profession.

Is it a Superpower? Maybe an Illusion? A Sixth Sense?

A great performance by a professional and experienced mentalist will often leave you glued to your seat, captivated in awe, and repeatedly asking one question throughout the show – how did he do that?

Mentalists possess numerous psychological tricks, techniques, and unique methods they use repeatedly and in various forms during performances. For example, some of these methods include:

• Planting Thoughts – A psychological trick that is common among mentalists, where the mentalist ‘plants a thought’ in the audience’s subconscious. This thought can be used throughout the show or for a specific trick as needed.
• Reading Body Language – One of the most important techniques used by a mentalist is reading the body language of those in front of them. By reading body language professionally and accurately, the mentalist can perform numerous and unexpected tricks.
• Sleight of Hand – Many psychological tricks are performed using the mentalist’s mesmerizing and professional sleight of hand. Sleight of hand includes various sub-techniques such as false transfer (a technique to seemingly transfer an object from one hand to another without actually moving it), misdirection (a technique to draw the audience’s attention to a specific area using sleight of hand, thereby exploiting the ’empty’ space for an unexpected surprise), and palming (a technique used for hand tricks, card magic, and more, based on the mentalist’s ability to hold the relevant object behind their palm, hidden from the audience but accessible to them).
• Distraction – Distraction can include any action that completely diverts the audience’s attention (such as a quick hand movement, a shout, etc.), aiming to make the audience focus on a specific area and, more importantly, make them less focused on another area.
• Mental Illusions – Psychological and mental illusions are actions performed by the mentalist to make the audience think they saw something specific, while in reality, something else happened.

Are Mentalists Born Talented or with Special Abilities?

Many people tend to think that mentalists are born with superpowers, especially sharp senses, or a natural ability to perform in front of an audience. However, as one of the world’s best mentalists, Lior Suchard, can tell you, the truth is as far from this as psychological illusions are from reality.

Every performance by Lior Suchard that you see as an audience is just the final and condensed product of long, exhausting, and grueling hours of work and training, all stemming from an unwavering love for the profession, the audience, and the feeling. Mentalists are not born on the moon nor on distant planets – they are born just like any of us here on Earth, without an innate talent for deception or similar.

Behind every psychological trick, there are countless hours of practice, learning, trial and error, and a great deal of thought so that we, the fans and the audience at the shows, can enjoy and have an unforgettable experience every time. Therefore, to succeed as a mentalist, there is no need to be born with special powers, but there is definitely a need to develop an unconditional love for the profession that can be translated into the many, less glamorous hours of training.

The Path to Becoming a Mentalist – The 10,000-Hour Rule

To become a mentalist, one needs to work and train a lot without giving up. How much is a lot? The following story can teach us an important rule about talent, hard work, and perseverance. A rule known as the ‘10,000-hour rule.’

One of the studies conducted by psychologist Anders Ericsson, mentioned in his book ‘Outliers,’ was conducted in the 1990s at the Berlin Academy of Music. Ericsson initially divided several violinists into three groups – the star violinists who were the best, a group of relatively good violinists, and a third group of violinists not destined for a professional career and considered less skilled. He asked all three groups the same question – ‘How many hours have you practiced in your life since you first held the violin?’

Anders Ericsson was surprised when he received the following answers:

All violinists in all groups started playing the violin around age 5 and in the first three years practiced the same number of hours, between two to three per week. The significant differences were found between ages 8 and 20 as follows:

• The third group, with the less successful violinists, practiced about 330 hours a year by age 20, totaling about 4,000 hours between ages 8 and 20.
• The second group practiced double the hours, about 8,000 hours in the same age range.
• In the third group, consisting of star violinists, they found that these violinists practiced no less than about 10,000 hours in the same period.

Ericsson’s conclusion was simple and clear – what leads to excellence in any field is not related to innate qualities but rather to hard work, persistence, practice, and dedication over the years. The same applies to many mentalists, including Lior Suchard. It was not innate talent that led him to become who he is today, rather a great and unconditional love for the profession and the audience’s warm reactions.