Making Good News with Lewis Chaney: Magic, Mindset, And Stress Relief

Join Dr. Pete and Lewis Chaney for a little magical mindest reset. Lewis Chaney spent 25 years working in the television industry.  He saw the best and worst of humanity and knows a thing or two about dealing with daily stress. He came to a pivotal point in his career and that's when Lewis decided it was finally time to CHOOSE THE GOOD NEWS. Since exiting the television industry, Lewis has made it his life's mission to teach people that they are the producers of their own personal, daily newscast and it's up to them what goes in it. 

Learn more about Lewis here: 

https://lewischaney.com/

Transcript

Life Inside Stressful TV News

SPEAKER_01 0:16

Hello and welcome back to on air with Dr. Pete. I'm your host, Dr. Pete Economo, and I'm glad that you're here with me today. It's a chaotic time of year, that's for sure. And I know for me personally, I can get easily overwhelmed this this season. Uh, but that's why I practice mindfulness. And I truly believe that we all need to just take a break and maybe see some magic in our lives, even if it may be harder to find. So we have a little different show topic today, and I'm excited to bring today. This is Lewis Cheney, who has spent more than 25 years working in the television industry. And that's exactly why he's here and why he clicked with our producer Lee, because of her role in television. So he saw the best and worst of humanity and knows a thing or two about dealing with daily stress. He came to a pivotal point in his career, and that's when Lewis decided to finally choose the good news. So, since exiting the television industry, Lewis has made it his life's mission to teach people that they are the producers of their own personal daily newscast. How cool is that? I love that. Welcome to the show, Lewis. Thank you very much for having me. Glad to be here. So let's get right to it. So 25 years in television, what is that like? That is. If you can't see, he's pulling his hair out.

SPEAKER_00 1:31

I mean, seriously, it's like it's hair pulling. It's really, really a stressful job. It's one of those things a lot of people don't realize how stressful that business is. But if you do a research on it and you look and you see television people tend to rank really high in stressful jobs, it had a great lot of rewards. Don't get me wrong, I had a lot of wonderful times and wonderful memories and great friends, but you do get to see a lot of bad stuff.

SPEAKER_01 1:52

Do you have a favorite time now that you just said that? I guess as like as you said that was there something that popped in your mind?

SPEAKER_00 1:57

A favorite time in terms of news? Anytime I got to work with nonprofits, because I go back to kind of Mr. Rogers, you look for the helpers, and we got to help the helpers tell their story to help others. Those were the best days.

SPEAKER_01 2:11

Yeah, those are the best days. And so you like completely shifted directions in your career. You became a speaker, kind of the opposite of everything because you're promoting, you know. Exactly. Right. Sometimes TV is like doom and gloom. And so tell us about your TEDx talks.

SPEAKER_00 2:26

Okay, the TED Talk that I did, I I jumped into that in 2019. I've been in Toastmasters and thought, well, I'll give this a world, and that led into the speaking that I'm doing now. And what I did in that TED talk was I wasn't really sure what my message is going to be. So I told some stories and I talked about how you can be a better communicator. And that just started the snowball down the hill to get me to where I am now.

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Which is what? Like what would you say that snowball was?

Pivot To Speaking And TEDx

SPEAKER_00 2:50

What I do now is I work with organizations to help them douse the flames of burnout because it's not just something that happens fast and happens slow. It's cooking, strengthen connections, and rekindle the joy of work. That's what I'm after.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

So, all right, so and and with that, like share your profession with us now. Sure. You know, like yeah.

Magic As A Tool For Well-Being

SPEAKER_00 3:09

Yeah, well, what I do now, I'm a weird mix of things. That's what I am. I am kind of a mutt in the speaking world if you think about it. Because sometimes they hire for entertainment, sometimes they hire for motivation, sometimes they hire for content, and I kind of got all three of them because I do magic, and that has been one of the biggest passions of my life since I got into it 25 years ago. And I saw quickly how easy it was to lift people up doing that. I see that because I I do I'm at a restaurant every week, and I've been doing this for 13 years, six hours a week in restaurant work. And I have seen what it does to lift people up. I'm like, okay, if I take that, take the stuff I've done and use, take what I do in speaking and combine it all, that's pretty much where I am.

SPEAKER_01 3:54

So, I mean, I what what would you say the perspective was you shot? Like, and what kind of magic would you do? Uh you know Can I ask that am I allowed to ask that question?

SPEAKER_00 4:04

You're allowed to ask that question. Now you're doing this, we're also doing video, but you're also doing audio. Can I do something with you real quick? We could try it. Let's go. Right. You can just kind of we'll just describe to people what we're seeing here. Yeah. I'm just going to show you just real quick, half a dozen cards, I think, or maybe seven, I think is what I've got here. Let me pull these up, get them spread out here for you. Can you see these okay from where you are?

SPEAKER_01 4:23

I could sort of see them. Yep. So he's got a couple cards that is showing up on the screen to me. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 4:28

Can you memorize one of them? Can you see them?

SPEAKER_01 4:30

I can.

SPEAKER_00 4:31

Yep, I can. All right. Now I'm just going to show you. I'm just going to take them. I'm going to give them a little shuffle. Nothing, there's no AI, nothing here going on. If you notice one of these cards is blue.

SPEAKER_01 4:40

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

Right?

SPEAKER_01 4:41

One of them is blue, yep.

SPEAKER_00 4:43

I'm going to take that blue card away.

SPEAKER_01 4:45

Yep.

unknown 4:45

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 4:46

And I'm going to turn these cards back around and show you that your card is now gone.

SPEAKER_01 4:50

Yes.

The Awe Bubble Demonstration

SPEAKER_00 4:51

Is it gone? I think so, yes. That's the kind of stuff that I do. Just a little moment like that with someone, they go, what was that? And for that little moment, it puts them into a what I call an awe bubble. I put them in there and I keep them there until I'm ready to let them down. And it takes them out of their stuff. To give you an example, I've had people tell me I've lifted them up through the night. Maybe they've come in with something bad going on in the world, and for the five minutes or so I'm at their table, maybe ten, yeah. Their troubles and their problems and worries go away. And when I started noticing that, that's when I went, okay, magic is more than just ta-da. It's actually something that can help people.

SPEAKER_01 5:29

So, you know, a lot of people might not understand this connection between magic and turning daily news into good news, but this is sort of the evidence that you're talking about. Like this is what you sort of observed. So, how, like what in terms of health and well-being, how have you transformed it into that? Like, what have you seen around improving people's health and well-being?

SPEAKER_00 5:48

What it does is it primarily changes your mood and releases stress, relieves stress. Studies have shown that if you have, if you just take time and watch a magic trick, and you were talking about earlier on about the magic, it's out there everywhere. You you can't flick on YouTube and not run into a magic trick somewhere. But just watching magic relieves stress. It's amazing that that happens. It does so many other things too: cognitive skills, social skills, self-confidence. There's a lot of areas it goes into, but where I'm really focused on is the stress relief of it, whether you're performing it or whether you are watching it. And I teach people how to do some because it's what I call drive by magic. If you walk by somebody and you do something really quick, a small trick with them, and you get that moment from them to go, wow. And it lifts them up. They're going to be wondering about that the rest of the day, maybe the whole week it lifts them up, and it bounces back. You get it too.

SPEAKER_01 6:42

Yeah.

Why Magic Relieves Stress

SPEAKER_00 6:43

That's just part of what I talk about when you're talking about how you make your daily life your daily newscast. You get to choose things. This is what I choose. I choose to lift people up so I get lifted up.

SPEAKER_01 6:54

Drive by magic. Yeah. Where like where would people find that? You talk about restaurants, or like you say, sometimes they hire you for entertainment, sometimes for motivation. So, you know, how do you how do you know like when I call you, like what which Lewis am I getting?

SPEAKER_00 7:09

It depends on which Lewis that you want. You can do both. I mean, everything I do in my speaking world has magic in it. All of my programs have magic in them because I want to entertain, put you in all, give you an uplifting moment, but also bring the content. It's a delivery vehicle for the content.

SPEAKER_01 7:25

Yeah. Yeah. So delivery vehicle vehicle for the content. You know, it's interesting to hear you talk about like the YouTube and magic, because I guess that's the science of AI, which you mentioned a little bit earlier. Like, because I I mean, I don't think I've seen a ton of magic when I'm looking. You know, maybe it's because I'm clicking on different things. But I, you know, right now, I will say there's the mentalist, you know, and especially in the sports world, there's like this, I don't know his name actually. Oz Perlman. Yeah. Like making his circuit about, you know, with a lot of these professional teams. Um, so that's cup that's popping up. So what would you say about that?

SPEAKER_00 7:56

Oz Perlman is fantastic. I love his work. He's been around for a long time. And I watched the same thing you did where he was just on, I think, uh, CBS this morning or something.

SPEAKER_01 8:05

He did do that, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:06

And he was showing what he's doing back in the background with all the athletes. And you think about that, he's going back there, and these guys are under a lot of stress. He's going back there in a lot of ways doing what I'm doing. He's back there showing them something that's amazing, that lifts them up, that puts them in that awe moment. And I think it's fantastic. I mean, there's more of that happening out there than people realize. There's a lot more magicians out there than realize. And if you just type in magic, you mentioned YouTube, type it in. You're going to get loaded up. Not only with magic you can watch, but magic you can learn. So it's pretty easy and accessible now for people to get.

Entertainment Meets Content Delivery

SPEAKER_01 8:37

I mean, that's really important. I mean, obviously, in our on this podcast, we talk a lot about health and well-being and we want tools. You know, we always look to have what can I take away that I can do? So maybe are you suggesting that people could go to YouTube and search for magic and that would help them?

SPEAKER_00 8:53

Absolutely is what I'm suggesting because when you watch magic, it does so much for you just to take you out of everything, you have to focus. So if you're sitting at work and you take, you know, two minutes and you watch a magic video, you have to pay attention to what's going on. So that kind of brings you back into a world of focusing. It's also going to help with your cognitive skills. There's been studies done on that, and I don't want to get into all of that, but it's something that just it's very uplifting. And every time I'm around people, I know they come to the restaurant to come see me. They ask, is he going to be there? Because they know I'm going to make their night better. And that's what it's all about. And I've had so many stories from people who've written to me and said, Hey, you've done this, or that night, walk up to me with tears in their eyes and shaking my hand and going, You change my night.

SPEAKER_01 9:35

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

I see every day the impact of this. This is not something that I'm going, hey, there's been studies done on it. I'm telling you, in 25 years as a professional magician and mentalist, I've seen the results.

SPEAKER_01 9:46

Yeah, it's beautiful. I read something that you recently said, which was I can't change your life, but I can change your mood, your minutes, your mind, and give you the tools to life yourself up and others when it's most needed. So I really I like that. So tell us how you came to this profession and how it changed your own personal life.

SPEAKER_00 10:06

Once I started into this, it's really kind of strange. When I left the TV and news industry, we were talking about stress earlier. You don't realize how stressful it is when you're in it.

unknown 10:14

Yeah.

Magic In Sports And Pop Culture

SPEAKER_00 10:16

And when I left, my kids were still in their teens at that point. And after about a month, they said, Dad, you're different. You've changed. Just stepping away from that. And then when I got into all of this and started looking at the positive side of things, because I had been a very skeptical person, I had to be working in the business I was in. When I started looking at the positive side of things, it has changed, it's changed me. People will tell you now, if you'd have met me 10 years ago, I was a much more pessimistic person than I am now. And why is that? Simply because I changed my mind. And that's a lot of what it is, it's mindset. Finding those things that can make you happy, step away for a minute, do those things on a regular basis, and you'll be happier. I know that sounds like woo-hoo, foo-foo stuff, but it really isn't. I live it every day. I get it.

SPEAKER_01 11:04

Yeah, it sounds like magic magic there, you know, like changing mindset could be magic. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 11:09

It is. I mean, it's one of those things I I read long ago, and I forget who said this, I think it was anonymous. It said something to the effect of if you want different results in your work in your life, all you have to do is change your mind. Because if you act as you've always acted, you get what you've always gotten. And that's so, so true that it's a matter of changing that. And maybe it's not you changing your mind. Maybe you need to get somebody to help you. I have friends call me, this another whole side of me. I can start telling you jokes and never tell you the same one twice. It's just something that's a little Mac I've got. And I'll have friends call me up to tell them a joke or tell them a story to lift them up. So find somebody like that in your life. Who do you know that did is like the your class clown of your group of your circle? Call them up and go, hey, tell me something fun. I need a lift.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Were you vote? Were you class clown in your primary school?

SPEAKER_00 12:00

Oh god, no, I was a geek.

SPEAKER_01 12:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:02

Dude, I did magic. Hello.

SPEAKER_01 12:04

Yeah.

Practical Uses: Watch Or Learn Magic

SPEAKER_00 12:05

That's the that's geek on my forehead and giant letters.

SPEAKER_01 12:08

Yeah, that that's that's really great. So this uh this program is Beyond the Wand. I love the name, and uh, I know that you created those like micro bursts of stress relief in that in this program. So Beyond the Wand, proven benefits of magic tricks on health and well-being. So tell us more about this project.

SPEAKER_00 12:25

It's funny. The when I got into this, I'm like, okay, who will be the target audience for this? And I really didn't know. And I got contacted by a um city manager to come and do this program for his department heads, which is like going, these two things I didn't think would fit. But what I did is I went in and I showed them some magic tricks they could do and did some magic with them and talked to them about what you can do with this and why it helps and how it can do the same things you and I have talked about here, what it can do to help you, and they embraced it. They had a lot of fun with it. I was watching them later playing around with the stuff that I had shown them to each other. Yeah. So it comes in in very strange places that you wouldn't think it would go into, but it actually does. And going into it and telling them this is what magic can do, people have never seen or heard of this. They when you think of magic, I think a lot of people think of magic this way. You hear of a magician, what's the first thing you think of? What's the first thing you think of when you hear a magician?

SPEAKER_01 13:23

I was I was trying to practice that as you were saying that, and I mean magic is the word that comes to mind, which is really a terrible word.

SPEAKER_00 13:30

Yeah, I don't, I don't, I don't uh most people will conjure up an image of a guy ape and a top hat and pulling a rabbit out of it at a kid's birthday party.

SPEAKER_01 13:40

No, but we just talked about whatever his name is, so I see uh very different. I don't, you know, I don't see most don't.

SPEAKER_00 13:46

And that's the thing is I think a lot of people still are stuck in that trap of when you say magic or magician, they think kids' shows. And a lot of adults don't realize that it's entertaining for them too. But obviously, the success of Penn and Teller in Vegas and the other biggest shows you've had, and Lance Burton and all the other people who've come before David Copperfield, David Blaine, all the people that watched, adults are watching them. Of course. Adults are now getting, I hopefully, I think, are getting the picture that okay, this is something cool for us too, but they don't realize and maybe not even realize consciously that it's helping them.

SPEAKER_01 14:19

Did you ever do a segment on magic when you're working in television, or do we did you ever meet any like amazing magicians like in your time in TV?

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Ooh, in my time in TV, did I meet any amazing magicians? Off the top of my head. I mean, I've run into some now in the world of magic. One of the favorites is Richard Osterland. He's one of the top mentalists in the world. Owes Pearl and him. I mean, you're talking right there together.

SPEAKER_01 14:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 14:41

I've gotten to meet some great magicians, Jay Sankey who's come and lectured for us. But working in television, I didn't really get to meet that many magicians. I met a lot of celebrities and other people, but not too many magicians.

SPEAKER_01 14:51

Just curious. Just the I know. I wonder what that would have been like. So um, so obviously magic is one way that you're lifting people up. And how do you how do you lift, like how do you suggest that we lift ourselves up or others up?

Beyond The Wand Program

SPEAKER_00 15:05

I'm so glad you asked because it's not just magic. Magic, and this is where you can take that word and really stretch it someplace. For me, what I'm looking at with this stuff is a way to bring in things like oxytocin and endorphins into your world, dopamine. Here's how you can do that. You are the producer of your daily newscast. You go home, a lot of people come home. What's the first thing they do? They complain about what happened in their day. They find this outlet with their significant other and say, I can't believe so-and-so did this, it worked today, or this happened today, that was bad. News leads with that. It's called if it bleeds, it leads in news. And that's what they do. They put the bad stories up. I say if it's good, it should. All you have to do is decide which stories are going into your day. You don't have to hang on to them, you don't have to air them out. One of the ways that you can do that, or several ways you can do that, is step away from everything, particularly step away from the news right now. Yes. Turn it off, turn off the social media, turn off the news, and focus on what's around you. I've got two granddaughters. I promise you, in a day's time, I will do something with them that makes me laugh and smile and makes me happy. Find your happy place. We've all got one. For me, it's Mackinac Island. If I pull up a live camera from Mackinac Island, I'm at peace because I've been there and it takes me back. Even remembering that takes me there. Music, nature, pictures, memories, anything you can do to take one minute, just one minute, every now and then, and stop what you're doing, focus on that, find a little awe, find some laughter, tell some stories. That's what's going to help you step away from all the bad and start bringing more positive into your world.

SPEAKER_01 16:46

So that sounds like that's your that's your advice then for how people can produce their own good newscast. Yeah, that's really that's good advice. I like that a lot. Well, I mean, Lewis, this is really it's so cool like to have this uh these intersections of these different worlds. You know, congrats on being able to do that. It's really, really neat.

SPEAKER_00 17:04

It's very, very strange. People don't see how one of these things fit together up there. I love it. That's a new street thing. One of these things is not like the other. So yeah, but it all does work.

SPEAKER_01 17:15

It all does work, yeah. So uh, you know, really I appreciate you taking the time to come and share all these great tips and tricks on how to become your own good news, and we can lift up lift up our own lives because that's obviously what we're trying to do, especially here on this podcast. So I know a little magic goes a long way, and we're thankful uh that you were here to share the story. Uh so how can listeners learn more about you?

SPEAKER_00 17:36

Really simple. Go to lewischaney.com, L-E-W-I-S-C-H-A-N-E-Y.com. Check out everything there, you'll find everything you need.

SPEAKER_01 17:45

All right, so we'll have that in the show notes. Um, but Lewis, I thank you again for being here and for the listeners. Thank you for tuning in. We'll be here next week. And until then, spread a little kindness and stay well.