Turn Your Magic Into a Career #280

**SPEAKER_1** (0:01)
They're guys, they do magic. They are the Magic Guys.

**Josh** (0:11)
Ladies and gentlemen, what's up? It's episode 280 of The Magic Guys.
You know what? I was going to edit the intro to say, they are a magic guy, and today he is the magic guy. But obviously, I'm here by myself. What a weird episode to be doing. Like me being on screen and just there's no one to bounce off of and look at is super weird. But I have you guys in the chat, and you'll be glad to know the air horn is back, baby.
And I've tripled it up. So now it hits three air horns at the same time. But I'm not alone. I've got my friends in the chat. What up, Scotty P? What up, Pasha? What up, Tim Askin? You guys, the real magic guys that we serve here. And look, I'm doing a solo episode because Nick and Doug are in Las Vegas or at Magic Live. I massive FOMO.
But I'm here, I'm working, I'm doing gigs, I'm doing the pod, I'm making videos, I'm busy. And I thought this is probably a good chance for me to take the wheel and just share all the advice I can possibly think of to help you succeed to be a professional magician. If that is something that you desire, which again, I will bring up that it maybe shouldn't be everything that everyone desires. But if you do like me and you're a crazy person and can't think of doing anything else, I want to in this episode, just fill it with as much advice as I can to help you succeed. I have scattered advice all over the Internet, but in 2026, I just want to put it all in one place. So to start off with, I put in the Discord if you have any specific questions to put them in the chat. So I want to answer, there's two speakpipes in here now. I'm going to enter them and then I'm going to get into the framework of what I think will put you in the best place to make as much money as you can from being a magician. So first question comes in from our man, Sean. Thank you so much, Sean, for putting your question in.

**SPEAKER_3** (2:18)
Hey, Josh, hope you're good this week and not missing Nick and Doug too much. My question for you this week is as an amateur magician, how do I know if and when I'm ready to move out and try and get myself some gigs and paid work?

**Josh** (2:35)
Yeah, look, easy.
Simple but easy. Easy, not simple.
You know what I'm saying, and I think you do.
It's a tough question. How do you know when you're at that point where you can start making money from gigs and a mentor of mine told me, well, you'll know because people will ask you how much you charge. So you go out and perform magic as much as you can in any situation you can.
And at the beginning, you'll get comments like, oh, that was really good. Or wow, that was really impressive. But eventually when you get to a point, people will say at the end of that, they'll go, that was really great. Oh, you should have him at such and such as party. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Do you have a card? And if so, how much do you charge? Like people will ask you how much you charge. And that's when you know that you're at that place. You're at that place where people see it as a value, as an asset, and they want to pay you. And so, yeah, the audience will tell you, like if you're approaching people to perform at events for free and stuff, eventually you'll get someone say, oh, and before we book you in, like, yeah, what are your rates? So that's really how you'll know. This is the simplest answer. Our next question, great that you guys made it in here. Tim, Scotty Link, you'll be happy to know, Scotty, the air horn's back, baby. I'm going to wake up everyone trying to sleep. But if you are listening to this and you get annoyed by the air horns, I always say this to everyone, just listen to this on Spotify or Apple Podcasts because it edits out most sound effects and you won't hear it. So there you go. All right. This one comes in from Gautam and I know his question pretty much asks a whole series of things, so I'll try to answer them all as precisely as I can.

**SPEAKER_4** (4:21)
Hey Josh, thank you so much for doing this episode. I think it will be really helpful for the professionals out there. My first question is, do you believe magic is a commoditized service now? Like comedy is subjective. Some people may like your comedy, some may not. But magic is much more objective.