We caught up with the brilliant and insightful Daniel Chan a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.
Daniel, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Do you wish you had started sooner?
I have mixed feelings about the start of my career. Knowing what I know now, I would have started my career later, not because of anything creative-related, but because I missed out on a financial benefit from staying at my previous job! After graduating from the University of California, Riverside, I worked at Paypal. All the employees were offered stock options at the time as Paypal was a pre-IPO startup. As you work there long, the stock options vest. I had only stayed there for 13 months but had I stayed for four years, vested all of my options, and kept my stocks, I would have easily been worth 5 million by 2020. Looking back, it wasn’t too hard for me to do magic as a side hustle, as much of my work was on the weekends. Outside of the financial loss, I don’t regret starting magic when I did. My time at Paypal was not fulfilling work, and the years I invested in myself resulted in the magic career I have today
Daniel, love having you share your insights with us. Before we ask you more questions, maybe you can take a moment to introduce yourself to our readers who might have missed our earlier conversations?
Throughout my life, I’ve always had an interest in magic. Growing up, I saw a few magicians at theme parks. I also remember watching David Copperfield on television. I would record these specials on VHS tapes and watch them repeatedly, often in slow motion, to see if I could catch anything. When I went to college, I spent one of my winters teaching skiing as a side hustle. At one of the events at the ski lodge, there was a magician and seven or eight stunning Playboy Bunnies. I ended up following the magician watching each of his sets again and again. My wife jokes with me, “Good thing you didn’t follow the bunnies. I don’t think you would have made a good Playboy Bunny!” With each viewing, I would learn more. That’s why magicians often show a trick only once. With each repeated viewing, the viewer may come closer to figuring out how the illusion works. I started learning magic for fun and was inspired by the magicians I saw both live and on television. Crashing parties while getting paid for it sounded like a great idea!
After college, I worked full-time at PalPal pre-IPO. I gradually started performing magic on the side at family events, libraries, and later corporate events. Around that time, I discovered Misdirections, a local magic shop, and was introduced to many of the top names in the magic industry through the owner, Joe Pon. I would work on the weekends performing magic instead of watching movies or hanging out at cafes with friends and would occasionally use my sick days to take performances. I worked seven days a week, with daytime hours dedicated to my desk job and evening and weekends devoted to performance. I quit my desk job after 13 months to pursue entertainment full-time.
As an entertainer, I strove to provide a complete package as a single performer, offering high-level magic, juggling, and acrobatics to become a “three-ring circus rolled into one man.” As my close-up skills developed, it took time to transition into the corporate market fully. I had first to let go of the income stability that children’s entertainment provided. I couldn’t be taken seriously as a corporate performer while still catering performances to children. It wasn’t until I completely let go of the security of doing kids’ events that led to even more corporate events. One of the most memorable parties I had the opportunity to do was for Tim Ferriss, the author of the Four Hour Work Week. An interaction with one of the guests made the party unforgettable. A guest walked up to the group I was about to start showing close-up magic to, and before I even had a chance to begin a trick, she started raving to the group about me. She had seen me at a party eight years prior and was so amazed that she would talk about the magician who “blew her mind” at parties since. Knowing I was “that magician who did that amazing trick” was pretty neat! What sets me apart from other magicians is the experience I’m offering my audience. I’m not just performing standard tricks, but I also integrate a wide variety of thought-provoking mind reading, pick-pocketing, tech tricks like hacking into people’s cell phones, and custom illusions like producing a CEO.
We’d love to hear the story of how you built up your social media audience?
When it comes to building my presence on social media, I’ve found that experimentation and consistency are key. I’ve posted magic tricks I’ve been working on, my son juggling five balls or flaming torches, and even a few videos of him pick-pocketing (for entertainment, of course!). I also posted a few ordinary videos, including one of me using an egg cracker to open an egg and one of me opening a deck of playing cards. Funny enough, the last two videos went viral. In hindsight, I understand why they became viral, but I honestly thought my magic videos would have been the ones with more views – I guess I was wrong!
My advice is to set clear goals and define what success means to you.
Have you ever had to pivot?
The entire industry halted when the pandemic hit, including corporate and private events. No one was aware if or when a lockdown would occur, and over a few weeks, I had a few events attempting to cancel or reschedule, which was unusual. And then the lockdown came. Within a week, I lost over 8k thanks to canceled events. I spent many hours panicking as magic has always been a form of entertainment, best experienced live and in person. With a family to support, I started applying for jobs – any job – to make sure everyone was taken care of. After many a sleepless night mulling over my situation and hearing about how people would connect virtually via Facetime or Zoom, I began to wonder, “would it be possible to perform magic online successfully?” After some trial and error, I found that magic worked very well virtually, and thus I ended up pivoting to Zoom.
To gain traction, I started reaching out to journalists, offered free demos of virtual magic, and created an entire virtual studio in my kitchen. I worked over 16 hours a day, pitching and practicing, and as a result of all the hard work, I was featured in the Hustle, BuzzFeed, The Wall Street Journal, CNBC twice, and Business Insider a whopping four times. I performed a record twelve shows in a single day and fifty-two within a week. I wouldn’t have been able to do this in a live setting, and it was exciting to offer my clients a well-honed and quality show from the comfort of my home with an incredible 3-minute turnaround in between performances.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://millionairesmentalist.com/
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/danchanmagic/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/danchanmagic/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/danchanmagic/
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/danchanmagic
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCrmjnFLZ_TnSz3u8TSHG2kQ
Image Credits
Please give photo credit to “ScoTTTokar”