Be careful not to compromise what you want most for what you want now.
—Zig Ziglar
This quote popped into my head recently when sitting backstage after one of the worst gigs of my professional career. I’m not sure where I first read the quote. It was probably in some goofy book about sales I read as a teen, geared more toward selling Bibles door-to-door than booking magic shows, but anyways….
I performed at a corporate event. It was my standard show, the one I spent 18 years slowly and carefully building. This was a show I was at least a little confident in presenting to a group. But on this night, to put it lightly, I took a severe cock-stomping from the audience. Everything about this event was off. The audience was exhausted. I clearly didn’t connect with them for any number of reasons. They didn’t like my music. They didn’t like my suit. The venue opened into an active casino, so nobody could hear anything. They didn’t want to see my subversive, “clever” Spirit Bell routine, and, for sure, nobody wanted to cut my sock off. They didn’t want to play—especially with me.
They wanted the free drinks and their piece of literal silver bullion that the event organizers were giving them for their hard work… and their $5,000 registration fee. So, they were kind enough to sit through my skit. The show normally takes 60 minutes to get through, and if we were really having fun, a little longer. That night, it took 38 minutes—and five minutes in, I prayed for death.