The Magic Trick Effect: Why Great Teaching Feels Like Giving Superpowers
Design Learning Experiences That Make Students Feel Like Badasses
My daughter has been learning magic tricks lately, and her excitement when she masters a new one is contagious. "Dad! Look what I can do!" she exclaims, eyes wide with pride as she makes a card seemingly disappear.
That excitement got me thinking about why people are so captivated by tools like AI—and more importantly, what this reveals about effective teaching.
The "Look Ma, No Hands!" Moment
When someone uses ChatGPT for the first time and creates something impressive, their reaction is nearly identical to my daughter's: "Look what I did!" They are wowed by the fact they did something amazing with little effort.
This same reaction happens when we teach something complex in a beautifully simple way.
A friend of mine teaches cartooning and showed his students just two simple patterns for drawing buildings: a diamond pattern and a book pattern. Once they learned these basic templates, something magical happened—they started drawing extraordinary buildings with character and style. They drew much more than what he asked because it was so fun, and they couldn't stop showing off: "Look what I did!"
This is what we want in anything we teach—to make our students feel like badasses.
Nobody explicitly says, "I want to feel like a badass," but it's what they're really seeking. They want to do something cool. They want to look cool doing it.
The Magic Formula Behind The Atomic Course Blueprint
This "magic trick effect" is precisely what I built into The Atomic Course Blueprint. It creates this feeling through two key elements:
1. Instant Outline Magic
The Blueprint gives you a framework that lets you quickly outline a lesson with just a few simple questions. It's almost like a magic trick itself—suddenly you have the main body of a lesson without the usual struggle. People love applying it repeatedly: "How can I teach this? How can I teach that?"
2. Ultra-Simple Frameworks
The real magic happens when you create something so simple that students don't need to constantly refer back to your course to get results.
Think about it: Have you ever tried to remember a 16-step process? You can't—you always need to check the guide. But a 3-step process? With a little practice it becomes part of who you are.
The Distillation Process: Getting to Simple Isn't Simple
When I was teaching in the Building a Second Brain program, I decided to teach students how to write effective progress notes. These are notes you take after a day's work on a project. They help you remember where you left off and plan your next steps. My first attempt had four questions for students to answer.
But I wasn't satisfied. Four questions felt like too much.
So I refined it to three questions. But I still felt it wasn't simple enough.
Finally, I distilled it down to just three words: Action, Reflection, Next Action.
Here are the words and the questions:
Action: What did I do for this project today?
Reflection: What did I notice or learn?
Next Action: What do I think I'm going to do next?
When I presented this simple framework, it was like magic.
Students started using it immediately and kept using it. Later, they wrote to tell me how this framework had become part of their workflow and how much it helped them.
And they didn't need to refer to notes to do it. After using it once, they remembered it.
This is the essence of creating teaching magic: distilling concepts down to their simplest possible form—ideally to single words that capture entire processes.
It's what Tiago Forte did with his CODE methodology (Collect, Organize, Distill, Express). I guarantee it wasn't that simple when he started. The magic happens through distilling the concept down over time.
Becoming an Extension of Yourself
There's fascinating research in a book called "The Extended Mind" about how people begin to feel like their tools are extensions of themselves. The samurai feels the sword is part of his body. The pianist doesn't think about each key—the instrument becomes as natural to use as their hands and feet.
Great frameworks work the same way. When teaching is done right, the concept becomes so integrated that students almost forget where they learned it. It becomes part of who they are and how they operate.
This is what happens when you teach well.
Your students aren't constantly referring back to your course—they've internalized your framework so deeply it feels like their own superpower.
Are You Creating Magic Tricks or Encyclopedias?
Most courses try to be comprehensive, covering everything possible about a topic. But that's not magic—it's an encyclopedia.
Magic happens when you simplify complex ideas into frameworks so elegant that students can immediately apply them and get results that make them say "wow, look what I did!"
This is what I've built into The Atomic Course Blueprint—a system for creating course content so simple and effective that it feels like giving your students a magic trick they can perform again and again.
Next time you're designing a course or teaching something, ask yourself: "Am I creating an encyclopedia or a magic trick?" The magic trick will win every time.
Three ways I can help you
The Atomic Course Blueprint - Want to create courses that give your students that "magic trick" feeling? The Atomic Course Blueprint shows you exactly how to distill your knowledge into simple, powerful frameworks that students can immediately use and feel like badasses. No more encyclopedic courses that overwhelm—just elegant teaching magic. Find out more here.
iPARA: How to organize your digital life for action - Is digital disorganization keeping you from reaching your goals? What if just four folders could let you not just stay organized but actually get things done. See for yourself here.
Course Builder Coaching - Want one-on-one guidance in creating a course? Book a meeting with me to see how I can help you.
Made it all the way to the end?
That means a lot to me.
I'd love to hear about a time when you learned something that felt like being given a magic trick—a simple framework or technique that made you feel like a badass. Just hit reply and share your story. Your responses are the highlight of my week.