It differs greatly between wanting to become a great magician and actually doing it. In high school, I staged a show and my entire world came out to watch—friends and family members, everyone I want to impress. The audience all looked on in horror, fascination and pity, sitting there mute, enduring the spectacle and waiting for the show to end.

A few years later, I staged a Harry Houdini-style underwater escape in the river that flowed through the middle of the campus of the University of Iowa, where I went to school. I stood on a boat in the middle of the river wearing nothing but biking shorts and weights around my wrists and ankles. The sky was dead and gray, and the water was dead and gray, and a freezing breeze blew across its surface.

Technically, I succeeded. I jumped into the water, sank to the bottom, and escaped from the locks and the chains before swimming to the surface. But it didn't feel like a success. When Houdini did it, thousands of people turned up to watch, I had about a dozen who stopped on their way to class, and the police showed up because someone thought I was going to kill myself.

I am living proof, though, that if you throw enough time and effort at something—maybe even anything—you can become good at it. I found inspiration in Houdini's words: "The real secret to my success is simple: I work from seven in the morning to midnight and I like it." This quote lived on a piece of paper stuck to the wall by my bed for ten years. I had hit Malcolm Gladwell's 10,000 hours of practice by the time I turned 22, and he's right—I got pretty good.

The week after I finished school, I drove to Los Angeles to begin my career as a professional magician. I have never held another job.

I’ve been having trouble concentrating on one thing. It made school difficult for me. When everyone else in the class was focusing on tasks, I could not.

In my first literature class, Mrs. Smith asked us to read a story and then write on it, all within 45 minutes. I raised my hand right away and said, “Mrs. Smith, you see, the doctor said I have attention problems. I might not be able to do it.” She looked at me through her glasses, “You are not different from your classmates, young man.”

I tried, but I didn’t finish the reading when the bell rang. I had to take it home.

In the quietness of my bedroom, the story suddenly all became clear to me. It was about a blind person, Louis Braille. He lived in a time when the blind couldn’t get much education. But Louis didn’t give up. Instead, he invented a reading system of raised dots (点), which opened up a whole new world of knowledge to the blind. Wasn’t I the “blind” in my class, being made to learn like the “sighted” students? My thoughts spilled out and my pen started to dance. I completed the task within 40 minutes. Indeed, I was not different from others; I just needed a quieter place. If Louis could find his way out of his problems, why should I ever give up?

I didn’t expect anything when I handed in my paper to Mrs. Smith, so it was quite a surprise when it came back to me the next day — with an “A” on it. At the bottom of the paper were these words: “See what you can do when you keep trying?”

Inspired and touched, I began to keep trying hard in my study and struggled against attention problems. I believe one can find his way out of difficulty with determination (决心) and efforts.