The Ultimate Leverage For The Business Owner

 

I'm excited to share a powerful, non-magical business secret today, it's something every magician should be doing, but very few actually utilize. It’s one of those truths so visible that it goes unnoticed, and becomes a secret in plain sight. Think of this as a way to supercharge your business knowledge, not a replacement for great advice from your peers. It's a longer read (adapted from my lecture notes), so it might not be for everyone right now. However, if you're looking to level up your business I'm confident you will find the time well spent!

The world of magic is built upon and thrives on concealment. The performer's success is directly proportional to their ability to hide the method, to hide the secret from the audience. It’s this very foundation that leads many magicians to believe that this need for absolute secrecy must extend to every facet of their professional lives. The thinking is that the ONLY people that they can turn to for help is another magician. That magic methods including the business side must be copied. That you must remain inside the magic bubble to ‘pay your dues.’ The thinking is that anyone outside the inner circle of magic cannot possibly understand or contribute to their success. Yes, in the world of magic, it’s easy to believe that mastery comes from one place, the magic books and other magicians. They teach us methods, moves, routines, secrets, and everything needed to impress an audience with technical skill. But ask any top professional and they’ll tell you: the sleight of hand is only a piece of what makes a magician truly great.

A magician who reads only magic literature becomes technically knowledgeable but creatively limited. To elevate your performances, sharpen your presentations, and actually make a good living in magic, you must read beyond the magic shelf. Oh sure the magicians will want you to buy their books, and there is nothing wrong with the magic books, but to reach the top in your magic world you're going to need help from the real world too. You can’t be afraid to step outside the magic bubble.

Now let me explain: Magic is built on psychology, attention, expectation, emotion. Yet most magicians learn psychology secondhand through trick descriptions. But when you read books on human behavior, persuasion, or even social dynamics, you gain a deeper understanding of why audiences react the way they do. This improves misdirection, pacing, and the emotional punch of your magic. It helps you craft meaningful presentations. The strongest routines are not “watch this trick,” but “experience this moment.” Great presentations are built from storytelling, characters, tension, humor, conflict, resolution. Fiction teaches you rhythm and narrative; history adds themes and meaning; poetry gives you language that resonates. When you read beyond magic, your presentations evolve from demonstrations into experiences. Creativity doesn’t appear from thin air or pulled from a hat; it grows from inputs. A detail from a novel, a philosophical idea, a surprising historical fact, these become hooks for routines and patter. Reading widely gives your brain new raw material, helping you develop original scripts, unique presentations, and memorable magic that isn’t copied straight from the instructions. The more you read, the more comfortable you become with words: phrasing, rhythm, pacing, and clarity. Audiences respond to well-spoken magicians. Smooth script delivery, clean explanations, and confident interaction all grow from a mind trained by good writing.

Magicians perform for a wide range of people kids, adults, executives, families, classrooms. Reading books outside of magic helps you understand the world your audience lives in. You gain knowledge, humor, references, and stories that connect with everyday people. The broader your reading, the broader your appeal. Being a working magician means being two things at once: an artist and a business owner. Reading can transform your business as much as your magic. Magic books teach tricks; business books teach you how to get your tricks in front of paying audiences. Reading about marketing helps you: identify your ideal customer, understand what they value, craft a message that stands out, communicate benefits, not just features. This is how you get booked consistently, not through luck, but through strategy.

Books on entrepreneurship teach you how to: set your fees, negotiate respectfully, handle objections, build packages, raise your rates without fear. These are skills that most magicians never intentionally study, which is why many struggle financially despite having great acts. By reading outside of the magic you understand how other industries succeed. If you only study magicians, you’ll only learn how magicians think. When you read about photographers, comedians, speakers, musicians, and other performers, you discover business strategies you can adapt to your own career: how they promote, how they build fans, how they structure their income, and how they manage seasons. Running a magic career means handling challenges, difficult clients, slow months, changing markets, travel issues, equipment costs. Books on leadership and strategy give you frameworks for making better decisions and staying calm under pressure. Books on habits, creativity, and self-management can help you stay consistent, with practicing regularly, updating your website, following up with clients, and refining your business year-round. A magician with consistent habits is a magician who succeeds.

Now here’s why any good business (and almost every self-made millionaire or billionaire) will tell you that leaders are readers: Reading is the ultimate leverage. Every hour you spend reading is an hour you get to sit at the feet of someone who spent years or decades (and often millions of dollars) distilling their most valuable lessons. Warren Buffet spends 5–6 hours a day reading. Bill Gates reads about 50 books a year and takes detailed notes. Mark Cuban says reading gave him the edge when he sold his first company for billions. You’re essentially downloading decades of someone else’s experience into your brain for the price of a $20 book.

Leaders solve bigger problems, and bigger problems require more knowledge. The higher you climb, the fewer people are there who can teach you directly. At a certain point, your peers don’t know the answer either. Books become your board of advisors. Elon Musk taught himself rocket science by reading textbooks. Sara Blakely (Spanx billionaire) credits reading business and self-development books for giving her the confidence and know-how to build a billion-dollar company with no formal business training. Reading builds better decision-making. 

Leaders make high-stakes decisions with incomplete information. The more patterns you’ve seen in history, biographies, psychology, economics, and industry case studies, the better your judgment becomes. Charlie Munger calls this building a “latticework of mental models.” Readers simply have more models to draw from when everyone else is panicking or guessing. Reading expands your vision of what’s possible. Most people are limited by the ideas they grew up with or the environment they’re currently in. Books expose you to radically different ways of thinking, new business models, and proof that “impossible” things have already been done. That’s why almost every successful founder you admire has a reading list they swear by.

The Brutal Truth: If you don’t read, someone who does will eventually out think, out learn, and out earn you and usually without working any harder than you do. They’ll just be playing a completely different game because their mind operates at a higher level. As Business Leader Jim Rohn said: “The difference between where you are now and where you’ll be in five years will be found in the quality of books you read and the people you surround yourself with.”

I can already hear some thinking, ‘but all that’s not really the entertainment business’ The ‘Entertainment Business’ is different. My business is different.  My business is different.  My business is different. NO, it’s not, but I’ll speak more about that in another post, for now, let’s keep going:

Entertainer Will Smith: Is an avid reader who discussed his love for books in his autobiography. Natalie Portman Graduated from Harvard with a psychology degree while acting full-time. Reads constantly and likes philosophy, history, fiction, science. Has said she always has a book with her on set. Emma Watson Famous for her “Our Shared Shelf” feminist book club on Goodreads. Reads 2–3 books a week, even during Harry Potter filming. Keeps a huge personal library. 

Keanu Reeves Obsessed with literature. Loves Proust, Dostoevsky, and William T. Gibson. Has been photographed reading extremely dense books on the subway for decades. Co-founded a small publishing house (X Artists’ Books). Ryan Gosling Known to read serious literature and philosophy between takes. Angelina Jolie Has a massive personal library. Reads history, international relations, human rights law, and biographies obsessively, credits reading with shaping her UNHCR work. James Franco Read so much he got multiple graduate degrees (Columbia, NYU, Yale, etc.) while acting. Has published books of poetry and short stories.

David Bowie Famously published a list of his top 100 books before he died. Read hundreds of books a year, everything from obscure fiction to history and philosophy. Jay-Z Has talked about books in dozens of his lyrics. Reads business, history, and biography constantly. Credits reading with helping him go from rapper to billionaire mogul. Steve Martin Huge reader of philosophy, art, history, and fiction. His memoirs and novels show a deep literary background. 

Conan O’Brien Harvard English literature grad. Reads classic and contemporary fiction obsessively. His writers say he’s the best-read person they’ve ever met. Trevor Noah reads multiple books at once on politics, history, fiction. Learned much of his worldview and several languages through books growing up in apartheid South Africa. John Cleese Obsessed with psychology and philosophy books (his library is legendary among Monty Python members). Oprah Winfrey The most famous book evangelist in entertainment history. Her book club has launched hundreds of bestsellers. Still reads a book every 2–3 days. 

Dolly Parton Reads constantly and founded the Imagination Library, which has donated over 200 million books to children. Ice Cube Surprisingly big reader, biographies, Black history, finance, and screenwriting books. Reese Witherspoon Runs a massive book club (Hello Sunshine) that turns books into movies/TV shows. Reads 3–4 books a month minimum. Magician David Copperfield once said, “The non magic books that are on my top ten list are books by master storytellers. Writers who know their way around a narrative, and who tell it beautifully.” Copperfield also draws inspiration from a variety of non-magic subjects, such as physics and history, integrating new ideas and approaches into his magic

Bottom line: Almost every entertainer who has had a 20-30-or 40+ year career at the top level reads like crazy. The ones who don’t tend to flame out or stay one-dimensional. Reading doesn’t just make you smarter, it makes your art deeper, your interviews sharper, and your career longer. The evidence is overwhelming.

The core truth is that truly good magic, the kind that makes an audience gasp, laugh, remember you years later, and tell their friends rarely lives or dies on the secrecy of its method. The method is the engine, but the experience is the car. And the most breathtaking cars are built by people who obsess over design, psychology, storytelling, theater, comedy timing, music, lighting, human behavior, and yes, even marketing and branding fields that have been studied, refined, and taught openly for decades or centuries outside the tiny magic subculture.

And the business side is even more stark. Magic forums are full of people asking how to get more gigs, how to raise fees, how to build a brand while ignoring the mountains of case studies, books, podcasts, and courses produced by actual entrepreneurs, copywriters, and marketers. The same principles that sell a $10 million product or a $200 sneaker drop will sell a $3,000 stage show or a $500 close-up set. Audience attention is audience attention. Perceived value is perceived value. Storytelling that moves people to buy is the same whether the product is software or a signed card in an impossible location.

I hope your takeaway is this: Embrace your magic. Protect your unique secrets but freely borrow ideas and techniques from other fields like theater, psychology, comedy, design, and business. The greatest magicians are adept borrowers, readily integrating readily available tools from diverse disciplines. The real “secret” everyone is looking for was never hidden. It’s been hiding in libraries, bookstores, podcasts, and university courses the whole time.

Thanks for reading and best of luck in your journey,

Tom