hotel room, obsessively writing
and re-writing my notes on
playing cards.
Pushing myself comes naturally
to me. When I’m doing something like learning how to hold
my breath for the world record,
I suddenly have no distractions,
everything becomes clear to me,
and I am completely focused. I
cannot easily explain it because I
don’t really understand it myself.
I just know that in that place I
feel like I have a purpose.
Maybe it’s because I was born
with my feet turned in, and wore
leg braces until I was five years
old. I also had asthma and no distinct physical advantages. As a
result, I wanted to prove to myself that I could compete with the
most athletic kids. That led me to
constantly challenge myself, and
eventually I learned how to hold
my breath longer and swim faster
than other kids who didn’t have
the same physical setbacks I did.
MORE ON
TED WEEKENDS
MAKING THE
IMPOSSIBLE
POSSIBLE
HUFFINGTON
06.16.13
DAVID
BLAINE
Voices
TREATING FEAR
IN THE 21ST
CENTURY
Learning to hold my
breath for 17 minutes was
an exciting challenge,
but here, there was no block
of ice, or coffin lid, or even
a deck of cards separating
me from the crowd.”
I love performing magic, sleight
of hand, logic puzzles . . . but what
drives me is pushing past my limits
to accomplish a goal that should be
impossible. Speaking at TED was an
amazing opportunity to share my
story, but beyond that, being able to
overcome my fear of public speaking in front of my heroes made it
one of the most memorable
experiences of my life.
David Blaine is an American
illusionist and endurance artist.
A selection of the week’s related blogs
HEADLINES TO VIEW BLOGS ABOUT THIS WEEK’S THEME
ONE CARD
AT A TIME
I WANT
TO BELIEVE
THE KEY TO
EXCEPTIONAL
ACHIEVEMENT