Being a magician was always something I wanted to do, but for 4 years after leaving school I couldn’t wrap my head around how I could make a good, sustainable living as an entertainer in South Africa.  Instead, I simply did what came naturally — I’d perform as often as possible, picking up the odd restaurant gig here and there, making tips, and occasionally being asked to perform at small company events. During the day I was a computer repairman; at night I’d get to express my passion for magic and entertainment!

As I become more experienced and confident, I was able to work at better venues and I was forced to improve my performances to match the audiences’ expectations.  It was only in July 2003 that a highly-respected colleague ( who has subsequently become my best friend) said to me, “Marcel, you have enough of the skills you need to  make a living from this!”.  And it finally struck me that I really could become a full-time magician. The next day I handed in my resignation letter and 3 months later I was self-employed…

Looking back today, I’m so extremely happy that I made that decision!  There are not many South Africans that get the opportunity to not only do what they love everyday, but also get to travel the world, meet influential people, work for some of the top-performing and respected companies, and get to experience real magic daily as part of their job.

Here’s just a few things that I’ve learnt over that past six years:

• You can never read enough — almost everything you need to know about anything is written down somewhere.
• You can’t afford to wait for things to happen — it takes daily self-disciplined action to get what you want.
• Always be ready to serve — opportunities are everywhere if you are willing to stop and lend a hand.
• Making sharing part of your routine, whether you teach, coach, donate money or simply give of your time. Everything you give comes back tenfold.
• Be trustworthy, say what you mean and mean what you say.  Keep your promises, including those to yourself.
• Be remarkable, literally remark-able, by being so congruent that people identify you as someone special and attractive.
• Enthusiasm and passion are highly-regarded qualities — you’ll need them both to become successful.

I’m thankful that I chose this career by leaving my old one behind, instead of becoming a magician straight out of school.  The few years that I spent in the ”corporate world” have given me so much appreciation for the challenges and opportunities that I face everyday.  I love the fact that I get to play in the corporate world, not only at corporate events and company functions, but also by sharing my ideas, attracting new customers, and providing the standards of service that companies expect. And it’s only going to get better and better …

For the six years that I’ve been supported by you, my friends, clients and family: THANK YOU! I couldn’t do it without you …

NOW LET’S SEE WHAT YEAR SEVEN BRINGS!!

Of course, I was absolutely thrilled to help!  This was my first national television interview & it’s not often that an entire TV show is dedicated to a magician, so this was a very important opportunity for me.

The following video is the full recording of the show.  It’s about 26 minutes long & includes some of the presenters’ “banter” & a quick brainteaser (see if you can guess the answer!), but it’s well worth watching.

The interview with Ayanda was recorded at Rhodes Memorial a few weeks before this programme was broadcast. However, most of the show was recorded & broadcast live at the Clockwork Zoo studios in Cape Town on Monday 17th August 2009 on SABC2.

To be honest, I’m absolutely “over the moon” with how well this went!  Yes, I was a little nervous about performing my tricks live — remember, my tricks never go wrong, they just have different endings.  But I was more concerned about length of each effect so that the show would run on time.  I don’t normally have to be too concerned about the length of my performance, but I only had about 3 minutes per trick, so I had to do some quick thinking before the show started.

As I watched this video this morning, I was relieved to see that everything worked out almost exactly as planned.  The videography on the interview was awesome, the segways had me amused (remember, I didn’t know when he was filming), and the live performance delivered a great punch.

I’d like to thank everybody for their emails, telephone calls, Facebook comments & SMSs!  An extra big thank you to Phillip Santos for assisting with this video clip, I really appreciate it.