How It All Started...

One of the questions that people often ask me is why I got into magic. The short, funny answer is because it got me a lot of dates. The real answer though goes back several years before I ever thought about dating.

When I was 10 year’s old, I was at Vacation Bible School in Coppell, TX, and the organizers had brought in a clown magician to entertain the kids. The performer was not very good, and I have to admit that I was being “that kid” and giving her a bit of a hard time. This woman was pretty smart. She neutralized my comments by asking me to come up on stage and be her assistant.

I went up on stage and was helping her and then at the end of the trick something amazing happened. The audience started clapping. She had me take a bow, and they were smiling and clapping and hollering, and I was hooked.

From that point on, I started reading everything I could get my hands on regarding magic. I got a deck of cards and started practicing at night in my room. Soon I was performing simple card tricks for my friends. As my skill progressed, they became more and more amazed.

Now my first answer that magic got me a lot of dates was starting to come true. Magic gave me the confidence to go up and talk to total strangers. An interesting point though is that my wife, Leena, wasn’t at all impressed with my magic effects. I think that may be one of the reasons I initially liked her.

For many years magic was a hobby of mine. I would learn new effects and test them out on Leena. Then when she thought I was good enough, I would share them with friends and family. Occasionally someone would ask me to perform at a wedding or other event. After a while I started thinking, I could actually do this professionally, and the rest – as they say – is history.

Now, I have performed all over the world. I’ve performed for charity events, birthdays, weddings, corporate events, you name it. I’ve even performed for celebrities like David Copperfield, Dirk Nowitzki, Jason Witten, Tony Shalhoub (Monk), and Darius Rucker (Hootie and the Blowfish), among others.

But no matter who I perform for or where, I will always remember that first time when I was standing on stage and seeing people’s reactions to my very first magic effect.