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Rick Saldan is an excellent inspirational speaker who tailored the seminar to the needs of the individual students being instructed. This office thanks the Mayors Office of Information Services for having such a vendor.

 

Timothy K. Lynch

Office of Fleet Management

City of Philadelphia

 


 

Rick has a magical approach that provides a clear and concise message specifically designed to the needs of his audience. Rick will provide all the motivational magic you will ever need, propelling your organization to the next level of greater success.

 

Thomas Mulhern

Frontier Communications

 


 

Rick Saldan is a compelling and absorbing motivational speaker and magician.  I have been to five of his Motivational Magic presentations and it is amazing how he keeps our college audiences on the edge of their seats. A highly entertaining performer with great comedy flair. Rich content to increase students' productivity, peak performance and motivation. If you need an outstanding motivational speaker for colleges, Rick is definitely one of the world's greatest speakers and magicians!


Dr. Rob Gilbert, Sport Psychologist,

Montclair State University

 


 

Rick Saldan has the wit, wisdom and sorcery of a wizard. He has a dynamic personality, and all will enjoy his captivating stories, comedy and magic!

Dennis Slaughter
Credit Suisse First Boston

 


 

Rick Saldan delivers a first-class show! A pro in every sense of the word. Funny, unique, entertaining and polished.

Brian Letscher, Actor

Hawaii Five-O, NCIS, Cold Case, Law & Order and The Mentalist.

 


 

Rick Saldan is a wonderful combination of master magician, comic improviser and first class speaker. The audience loved his program, which was music to our ears. If you love celebrity motivational speakers such as Tom Hopkins, Dale Carnegie and Zig Ziglar, then you'll love Rick!

Dottie Burman, President
Burtley Productions, Inc.

 


Rick Saldan is an incredibly talented performer and motivational speaker with great insight. He shares many powerful motivational messages that will enhance your life for the better!

Jack Murray, President
Dream Illusions

 


Rick is one of the best inspirational speakers on the scene today. Funny, fun loving and highly energetic. If you want to make your next event into an extraordinary one, then invite professional speaker  Rick Saldan and his amazing  Motivational Magic.

 

Andres Lara, President

Inspiration Times Magazine

 

 

Tuning In: How To Focus
Author: Art Nefsky

Obsessive? Who says I’m obsessive? I’m not obsessive! I prefer to think of myself as... focused.

Okay, so when I decided to plant my first vegetable garden and nourished each seedling as if they were my own children, I had no idea that I would wind up with enough produce to feed a three block radius. And when I learned how to make pizza from scratch, I did have it every day for over three weeks until I got sick of it. It’s just that when I get interested in something I tend to hang on to it.

Actually this article is not about obsessive behavior, but it eventually leads me into the point I’m trying to make.

Back in the late seventies and early eighties I was a huge Dallas fan - not the football team, but the TV series (you know, the one with J.R., Cliff Barnes, and the guy who divorced Pam to live with Suzanne Sommers). In those days we didn’t all own video recorders, so every Friday night between 9:00 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. the answering machine was turned on, and the “do not disturb sign” went up. I refused to answer the phone, the door and anyone who happened to be in the room with me at the time. It was a gift that I gave myself, a one hour a week vacation away from the real world, the responsibilities and the stresses. It was simply my hour.

My commitment (not just to the show, but to that hour) was so strong that I found myself scheduling my work around it. Since I was working as an entertainer, Friday nights were often a difficult time to get to a television set. In the seventies when I was performing with my show band, I set it up so that my band would come on at nine at night, play a dance set for forty minutes, take a twenty minute break and then I would come on at ten. That gave me time to watch the show from my hotel room. When I started acting in murder mysteries in the eighties, I arranged to have myself “killed off” in time to watch the show from a monitor in the restaurant kitchen.

But I knew I was hooked when I bought a five inch black and white television set that I could plug into the cigarette lighter. I was on the road a lot and I could just pull off the highway and watch “my stories”. (Which brings me closer to the point of this article.)

One Friday night I was on my way to Thunder Bay and decided to pull off the highway somewhere between Blind River and Wawa, Ontario. It was almost nine and I didn’t want to miss anything. I turned on the set and got nothing but static and interference. After fumbling around with the antenna for a few minutes, I found that if I held the tip of the antenna with my left hand and bent it over while stretching my right arm straight out and touching the door lock with the tip of my index finger, I could still get unbelievably poor reception, (but it was better than no reception at all.) I could hear sounds coming from it, enough to figure out if it was a male or female voice, but the static was so loud that I couldn’t make out the words. The snow on the screen was terrible, but occasionally I could see forms and very distorted outlines. Sometimes the sounds would come out at the same time as the forms and I was actually able to guess who was saying what. And then something astonishing happened.

After twenty minutes of concentration, my mind was able to tune out the heavy static, allowing me to hear the dialogue. I was able to ignore the snow, and with the help of my imagination, translate those faint outlines into clear images. The reception was just as lousy, but after I stopped bitching about the interference and totally tuned it out, I was actually able to follow the show.

And so, here is the point I wanted to make.

All of us spend so much time in our lives focusing on the interference, that we often end up missing the show. We're so concerned with our problems that we tend to forget what we wanted in the first place. We're brought up thinking “If you can’t do it right, don’t do it at all.”

It’s no wonder that people are afraid of taking risks. We’re afraid of getting it wrong, afraid we might not live up to someone else’s expectations, afraid of pouring our hearts out on paper because someone might correct our spelling, afraid to sing because we might go off key or, afraid to dance because we might step on someone’s toe. But most of all we’re afraid that someone just won’t approve. So if you don’t do anything, you can’t make mistakes, can you? But if we learn from our mistakes, why do people spend so much time trying to avoid them?

It’s easy to let obstacles get in the way of our dreams. We can always say that we tried, but don’t we spend too much time on the “how”, and not the “why”?

Now, you may not be a Dallas fan, but have you ever tried to watch the world series in a bar? Have you ever talked to a person you were extremely attracted to in a noisy disco. Have you ever had an important telephone conversation with the baby crying and your two year old tugging at your leg? Each of you has the ability to keep your eye on the dream while minimizing the annoying obstacles and excuses that stop you from achieving your creative best.

However, just reading about what to do and intellectualizing your way through it often has it’s limitations. All the stories and analogies in the world won’t help until you apply some kind of action to it.

So here are a few suggestions to help you get started:

1. The next time you listen to a favorite song, focus in on just the bass player. If you concentrate hard enough, the rest of the music will sound like it’s in the background. Then try picking out another instrument and do it again.

?2. Make a list of twenty five simple things that you do automatically and make a conscious decision to change it. For example, the next time you have your coffee, stir it in the other direction. Wash a cup with your other hand. Take another route to work. It may sound silly, but have you ever driven home and not remember turning the corner? Most of us spend a good portion of our lives walking around like zombies, going through the motions and doing everything on automatic. We have enough day to day decisions to make so we tend to zone out and repeat the trivial things. By choosing the exercise of consciously deciding to do something differently, you start to condition the brain into being open to change. If you can’t change the little things in life, how are you going to transform the big ones? It is important to choose to change things as they come along and not just decide on twenty-five things to do differently. Remember to keep them simple.

?3. Make a list of twenty five wins. If you see an ant on the sidewalk, race it to the corner! You’ll win! The brain doesn’t know the difference between a big win and a small win. A win is a win. We spend too much time setting ourselves up to lose. The voices in our brain harp on what we can’t do (often before we even try it.) It says “You idiot... you’re stupid... you can’t do it... why are you even bothering?” We’re ready to lose before we even get started. It is not cheating to acknowledge all the little wins you give yourself, even if you have to set yourself up with them. If you saturate your mind with little victories (even getting out of bed could be one) then you will be able to handle the big loss. All your brain will say is “So what. Twenty-five out of twenty-six ain’t bad.”

We know that life doesn’t give us perfect reception. We all have to live and deal with interference every day. Just don't miss the show.






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Art Nefsky is internationally acclaimed as a singing/performance coach and is a specialist in eliminating stage fright and performance anxiety in performers and public speakers. He is author of the book, "Scaring Away Stage Fright" and as director of Showoffs Studio for Performers , holds weekly classes in his studio in Toronto as well as intensive weekend workshops across North America. His web site contains articles on building confidence and improving public performance as well as a "Stage Fright Clinic" that helps people overcome performance anxiety through personal consultation and correspondence.
http://www.showoffstudio.ca
art@showoffstudio.ca

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