Recently, I’ve become fascinated by the magic of Dynamo (Steven Frayne) that I’ve seen on television and the internet. Some of the things he does seem almost impossible, and he has really captured my imagination. Something compelled me to read his autobiography and I wasn’t disappointed. It was fascinating.
Dynamo was born to a single mother in a very poor part of England. They had no money. He has had Crohn’s disease from an early age which made him a rather sickly and weak child. He was beaten up a lot. Nothing seemed good for him. He certainly didn’t start out with any sort of privileges.
In spite of all this he developed a dream to be a magician and he started working towards that. His story is of somebody who had a burning dream and didn’t give up on it for a minute. When I read his autobiography I see that there were thousands and thousands of places in his career where it would have been so easy to give up, and almost everyone would have, but he didn’t. He kept believing in his dream and he has eventually achieved it. This is amazingly reminiscent of the messages in the book Think and Grow Rich and the audio track The Strangest Secret, and it’s closely aligned with the concept of The Law of Attraction.
My Favourite Quotes from Dynamo – Nothing is Impossible
These are all direct quotes from the book. Some of them are really profound and useful to our lives in general. When somebody starts with nothing and achieves something meaningful, they must be doing something right.
- Even now, when I have a birthday or a launch party, I always worry that no one will turn up.
- I’d watch as many films as I could. I became enveloped in a fantasy world of action heroes and futuristic metropolises.
- But there were no tricks with my magic!
- Those films taught me to never doubt your abilities. If you want to make something happen badly enough, then you’ll make it happen. I still watch films to inspire me now. It’s the art that knows no boundaries, just like magic.
- I’d found the most powerful way to overcome them – through the power of the mind.
- Magic literally became my world… some might say an obsession.
- Magic was my way of bringing people together.
- You’ve got to put your heart and soul into it if you want to succeed at this game.
- So many people told me I couldn’t do it and they were wrong. You have to be stubborn but be smart with it. If you can prove others wrong, go for it.
- I let people come to me and with that, the money followed. If it had been the reverse and I was trying to win people’s attention because I wanted money, it would never have worked.
- This was really the first time I not only felt that way, but, as cheesy as it sounds, I accepted myself.
- …what you see and how your mind perceives it is the magic. Magic only happens in the spectator’s mind.
- I don’t believe magic exists as a ‘thing’ at all; to me it’s more a physical feeling and emotion that you get when you see something that you can’t explain.
- Maybe us magicians are all cosmically connected in some weird way?
- Without passion and self-belief, I could end up like any of the other thousands of struggling magicians out there.
- I felt far from a ‘dynamo’ now. I felt like giving up all together.
- ‘He’s the biggest man I’ve ever seen. I wouldn’t want to fight him.’ Pitt turns to him and replies, ‘That’s why no one will remember your name.’
- But that line suddenly and inexplicably struck me. If I died, who would remember my name? What memorable things had I done in my life? I felt goose bumps prickle my skin.
- Suddenly, a fierce determination roared inside me. I could languish in this hospital bed, or I could use this opportunity to do something. Something big.
- I needed to setup a real business…
- …but that wasn’t the right way to go about it. There was no structure, no plan. How can I make it bigger? How can I touch the whole world?
- It was time to go all out. No matter the odds.
- From that moment on, I stopped lying about, watching films and eating grapes.
- But something had changed. I was now driven., determined and full of life. It sounds cheesy but I felt like a new person.
- I let everything float around in my mind.
- …taught me to never give up on a situation – no matter how impossible it might appear. You have to watch for the random opportunities and take them
- I honestly don’t know how things would have worked out if I hadn’t had that serious operation.
- As Will Smith once said, people are attracted to greatness. If you can display greatness in whatever field you work in, then naturally people are going to gravitate towards you. Plant the seed around them and they will come. It’s keeping them there that’s the hard part.
- You know when Richard Branson is in the room. There are no airs and graces. Just confidence and a sense of power and presence. I guess that when you’ve reached the level of success he has, you’ve probably dealt with a lot of your demons and your insecurities, so you just exude confidence.
- Everything I’d seen in my mind became a reality.
- The human spirit is more powerful than anything I know.
- I’m very careful that I am consistent in who I am and what I do.
- …because no matter how much you plan things, life always takes its own path.
- We could have sat on the train for an hour and given up, but we waited there for six hours, getting knock-back after knock-back. Most people would have got off that train before we did.
- I had to block out any negative thoughts otherwise I’d never be able to do it.
- I wanted to test myself, I wanted to push my own physical and mental limitations.
- When you’re a kid you believe you can do anything. It’s only when you get older you get cynical and you start to put up barriers.
- I believe that passion is the biggest form of motivation.
- I tell them it’s because I want to show people that there’s more to life than just working nine-to-five. You don’t have to follow what everyone else is doing. You can have a mind of your own. You have to go against things and innovate. I like to take the impossible and flip it inside out by using magic.
- I think that if I can create it in my head, then it must be possible.
- It’s often the case that places where there is extreme poverty are also places of incredible creativity.
- Al Pacino was homeless when he first started out and had to sleep in a theatre!
- Sometimes I wonder if my life has all been an illusion, but if there’s one thing I’ve learnt, it’s that reality is only what you make of it.
- I made a pact to myself there and then that no matter how rich or famous I became, I’d never be ungrateful or wasteful of my success.
- I’m not meant to be able to walk on water or fly through the air, but I do. I’d urge anyone else to truly believe they can do whatever they want to. Nothing is impossible.
- When I was around Gramps, I wouldn’t want to talk about anything negative. I wouldn’t want to bring it into that warm environment. He had this weird way about him, and so always kept things positive when I was in his company. In a way I forgot my troubles when I was with him. True magic. By the time I left his house, I would be feeling inspired. Nothing would faze me.
Table of Contents – Dynamo – Nothing is Impossible
- Prologue – The Impossible Dream
- Chapter One – A Magical Awakening
- Chapter Two – Hustle and Bustle
- Chapter Three – Magic You Can Touch
- Chapter Four – Avoiding the Straight Lines
- Chapter Five – The Heroes of Magic
- Chapter Six – Remember My Name
- Chapter Seven – Out of the Realm of Normality
- Chapter Eight – Who’s the Magician
- Chapter Nine – The Magic of Television
- Chapter Ten – Soundtrack of my Life
- Chapter Eleven – The Look on People’s Faces
- Chapter Twelve – Leap of Faith
- Chapter Thirteen – Flying High in the Favelas
- Chapter Fourteen – Reality is What You Make It
- Chapter Fifteen – Dreams Can Come True
- Epilogue – Making the Magic Alive
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