Thoughts from The Business Magician

Kostya’s Blog

2020 Keynote Speaker Reel
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2020 Keynote Speaker Reel

Looking for an engaging, funny, dynamic and relevant business speaker to impact your audience? On stage, I share secrets of perception and communication. These clips from my keynote speech, “Think Like A Magician™”, best represent the ideas that I share with business audiences at conferences and events around the world.

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Healthcare CFO talks about hiring keynote speaker, Kostya Kimlat
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Healthcare CFO talks about hiring keynote speaker, Kostya Kimlat

After hiring Kostya Kimlat as a keynote speaker for her group for a third year, Karen Fauer, of UltraGroup Healthcare, discusses her expectations and reflections on his keynote presentations. 

I just started thinking about it, because we do our conferences every year, and I wanted to do something different. So I started researching him, looking online about him, and I just saw all these interviews with people who had just ...

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The Best Keynote Speakers Share This Purpose
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The Best Keynote Speakers Share This Purpose

The purpose of my keynote speech is to do what Seth Godin describes: “ to communicate emotion. To create tension. To bring change.”

This quote comes from a great interview in Forbes magazine by Michael Solomon. In the same article, Richard Schelp, co owner and CEO of Executive Speakers’ Bureau writes that “the biggest success is when the keynote speech inspires the audience to leave different than they came in.”

It’s taken me 15 years to develop my Keynote Speech and turn it into an hour long transformative experience. My journey to create an ideal keynote speech started with wanting to “do something fun and different” for corporate audience that had grown tired of the expected.

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The Most Social Audience at a Keynote Speech
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The Most Social Audience at a Keynote Speech

Every speaker loves audience participation and social engagement. It's wonderful to get off the stage and see that people are talking about your presentation online, sharing pictures and quotes from your talk. But it doesn't happen every time because every audience has a different relationship with social media.

When I am speaking to a room of engineers, franchisees, or insurance adjustors,  I don't expect lots of tweeting about my presentation. But when I was asked to speak at the 7th Annual Florida Blogger and Social Media Conference, I knew this would be different than any other speech.  I just didn't expect this much social engagement. 

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The Importance of Social Proof
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The Importance of Social Proof

Over the years I neglected to ask my clients for testimonials. I was there to engage the audience! I thought the only proof necessary of a job well done was when my clients hired me back a second time.

But you and I know that nothing can help us make a buying decision easier than social proof. So at a recent business meeting I asked the person who hired me, a Director of Training & Development, to share her thoughts after I finished presenting my signature keynote, Think Like A Magician.™ 

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Scientists Explain Why People Learn More When They're Emotional
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Scientists Explain Why People Learn More When They're Emotional

Scientists at NYU have proven what magicians naturally discover after performing a few shows—that laughter, surprise and joy create positive emotions that make occasions extra-memorable. Or in more academic terms, the researchers concluded that, “emotional brain states carry over and enhance future memory formation.”

This explains why the lessons I teach business groups are recalled so well when I return to those same groups, the following year. Because I start the meeting off with unexpected actions, phrases and ideas, I kick the audience into “an emotional brain state.”

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How a speaker tricks an audience into paying attention
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How a speaker tricks an audience into paying attention

As a speaker, when I walk off stage, I enjoy hearing audience members talk about what stuck out for them or what lessons they took away. Last week I spoke to the salesforce at a franchise business and afterwards a gentleman named Dan greeted me with a hearty handshake and excitedly told me that he was awake the entire time!

“With my attention span, I can’t listen to any speaker for more than ten minutes in a row. You’re the first speaker I’ve listened to for the entire hour and I paid attention the entire time.”

Was it luck that Dan was so engaged? Or was it a good cup of coffee? And was the numberten a random number or was Dan manipulated and controlled against his will to say exactly ten minutes?

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Welcome
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Welcome

I’m a magician and speaker. Born in Kiev, Ukraine and living in Orlando, Florida. I speak at corporate events, entertain at social gatherings, and specialize in interactive magic. I have shown executives, managers and employees at GE, Apple, SYSCO and NASA how to Think Like A Magician™.

I’m fascinated by the role of perception in our lives. This blog will discuss the art and craft of perception.

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