In his book Only the Paranoid Survive, then-CEO of Intel Andrew Grove wrote, "Success breeds complacency. Complacency breeds failure. Only the paranoid survive." Lu Chen discovered, in the course of his years of interaction with magicians from Taiwan and around the world, that many magicians have one thing in common when it comes to practicing: they're exceptionally hard on themselves, even to the point of obsessive self-criticism.
2006 年，劉謙為了準備參加日本的比賽，練習一項撲克牌新技巧，那時眼睛所見之處都放著一副撲克牌，不管是在車上或是廁所，隨時隨地都處於記牌位置、切牌、抽牌的「手動」狀態。