The last post hit a nerve. Not with readers — with me. Because once you accept that the audience doesn’t care about your technique, you’re left staring at a question that’s harder to answer than any card sleight: if they don’t care about what you do, what exactly do they care about?
The answer is simple and devastating: they care about themselves.
This sounds cynical. It isn’t. It’s the most useful thing I’ve ever learned about performing, and the irony is that I already knew it. I’d just filed it under “consulting knowledge” and failed to carry it across to the stage.
The Client Doesn’t Care About Your Framework
Let me explain what I mean with a story from my other life.
Early in my consulting career, I spent four months building what I considered a masterpiece of strategic analysis for a telecommunications client. It was beautiful. Rigorous methodology. Comprehensive data. Elegant frameworks. I’d layered insight upon insight until the whole thing had an almost architectural quality. I was genuinely proud of it.
The presentation was scheduled for ninety minutes. I got through about fifteen before the CEO raised his hand and said — politely, but firmly — “This is all very impressive. But can you just tell me what I should do?”
He didn’t care about the methodology. He didn’t care about how I’d arrived at the conclusions. He didn’t care about the intellectual journey I’d taken or the analytical tools I’d used. He cared about his company. His problem. His decision. His outcome.
I was crushed. Then I was educated. Because my more experienced colleague, who’d been observing from the back of the room, took me aside afterward and said something I’ve never forgotten: “The client is always asking one question, and it’s never about you. It’s: what does this mean for me?”
That principle became the foundation of my consulting approach. Every presentation, every document, every conversation — always framed around the client’s reality, the client’s concerns, the client’s language. Never around my cleverness, my methodology, my analytical depth. Those things existed to serve the client’s interests, not to showcase my own.
And then I started performing magic, and somehow forgot all of it.
The Performer’s Narcissism
I don’t mean narcissism in the clinical sense. I mean the gravitational pull that draws every performer toward self-focus. It’s natural. You’re the one standing up there. You’re the one who practiced. You’re the one who knows how hard this is. Your internal experience is overwhelmingly about you — your nervousness, your technique, your timing, your awareness of what could go wrong.
And because your internal experience is self-focused, it’s incredibly easy for your external presentation to be self-focused too. To present the performance as something you are doing, with the audience as passive witnesses to your skill.
Think about the typical framing of a magic performance. “Watch this.” “Let me show you something.” “I’m going to attempt something.” It’s all first person. I will do this thing, and you will observe it.
Now think about how different it feels when the framing shifts. “You’re going to experience something.” “Something is about to happen to you.” “This involves you.” The locus of the experience moves from the performer to the audience. And that shift — that single change in orientation — transforms how the audience engages with what’s happening.
This isn’t a linguistic trick. It’s a fundamental reorientation. When the audience feels like the experience is about them — their reactions, their choices, their amazement — they lean in. They invest. They become participants rather than spectators. And participation produces an exponentially stronger experience than observation.
Audience-First Thinking in Consulting
In my consulting work, audience-first thinking is so embedded that I barely notice it anymore. But let me map out what it actually looks like, because the parallel to performance is exact.
When I’m preparing a strategy workshop for a client, the first question I ask is never “What frameworks should I use?” It’s “What does this client need to walk away with?” The outcome they need determines everything — the structure, the content, the pace, the level of detail. My expertise exists to serve their needs, not to be exhibited.
When I’m in the room, I’m constantly reading the audience. Not to see if they’re impressed by me, but to see if they’re getting what they need. Are they confused? Slow down. Are they bored? Speed up. Are they energized by a particular thread? Follow it. The presentation is a living thing that adapts in real time to what the audience needs, not a fixed performance that I execute regardless of the response.
And the measure of success is never “Did I present well?” It’s “Did they get what they needed? Did they leave with clarity? Did the session move their thinking forward?” My performance quality is measured entirely through the lens of the audience’s outcome.
Now apply all of this to magic performance. The parallels are one-to-one.
The first question before a show should never be “What effects should I perform?” It should be “What does this audience need to experience?” A corporate team that’s been in meetings all day needs something different from a wedding party at midnight. A room of engineers needs something different from a room of artists. The audience’s needs determine the material, the pace, the energy level — everything.
During the performance, you read the room not to see if they’re impressed by you, but to see if they’re having the experience you want them to have. Are they engaged? Good, push forward. Are they drifting? Pull them back. Are they responding to humor? Give them more. Are they responding to wonder? Deepen the mystery. The show adapts to the audience, not the other way around.
And the measure of success is never “Did I execute cleanly?” It’s “Did they have an extraordinary experience? Did they feel something? Will they remember this?”
What “Audience-First” Actually Looks Like
Let me get practical, because this philosophy needs to translate into specific decisions.
Audience-first thinking in material selection means choosing effects based on their impact on the audience, not on their difficulty for the performer. I’ll admit this was hard for me. I’d spent so long learning technically challenging material that I was reluctant to set any of it aside. But some of the effects that create the strongest audience reactions are technically simple. And some of the effects that are technically complex produce a muted “that’s clever” response rather than genuine astonishment.
The audience doesn’t know what’s hard and what’s easy. They can’t tell. So choosing material because it’s difficult is performing for yourself, not for them.
Audience-first thinking in pacing means moving at the audience’s speed, not yours. When you’ve rehearsed a routine a hundred times, you naturally want to move through it at a brisk pace. You know what’s coming. You’ve experienced it all before. But the audience is experiencing it for the first time. They need time to absorb what just happened. They need time to react. They need the space to feel amazement before you rush them into the next moment.
I learned this the hard way at a corporate event in Graz. I performed a sequence that I’d rehearsed until it was tight and polished, and I moved through it at my rehearsal speed. The audience kept up — they’re smart people, they followed the logic — but they didn’t have the experience I wanted them to have. They processed it intellectually rather than feeling it emotionally. Because I hadn’t given them the time to feel. I’d prioritized my comfort with the pace over their need for space.
Audience-first thinking in presentation means talking about what they’re experiencing, not about what you’re doing. Instead of “I’m going to mix these cards,” it’s “Your card is lost somewhere in this deck — and in a moment, it’s going to find its way to the top.” Same action. Completely different framing. One is about the performer’s action. The other is about the audience’s experience. One is a demonstration. The other is a story that the audience is part of.
The Paradox of Self-Erasure
Here’s the paradox that took me the longest to understand: when you stop making the performance about yourself, you become more interesting. Not less. More.
When a performer is self-focused — “look at my skill, look at my technique, look at what I can do” — the audience sees a person trying to impress them. And being the target of someone’s attempt to impress you is not actually a pleasant experience. It creates a subtle dynamic of being sold to. You’re the mark, they’re the salesperson, and the product is their own awesomeness.
When a performer is audience-focused — “this is about you, this is your experience, something remarkable is happening in your hands right now” — the audience sees a generous person who is giving them something. And receiving a gift is a fundamentally different experience from being sold to. It creates warmth. It creates connection. It creates the conditions for genuine astonishment.
And here’s the kicker: the audience-focused performer ends up being perceived as more skilled, more impressive, and more memorable than the self-focused performer. Because by making the audience feel special, you become special to them. By giving them an experience they care about, you become someone they care about. The impression of skill follows naturally from the quality of the experience.
The self-focused performer has to work to seem impressive. The audience-focused performer becomes impressive as a byproduct.
What the Audience Is Really Buying
When someone hires me for a corporate event, they think they’re buying a magic show. They’re not. They’re buying an experience for their people. They’re buying the energy in the room. They’re buying the conversations that happen afterward — “Did you see what happened to Dave’s watch?” “Can you believe she picked the exact card?” They’re buying a shared moment that bonds their team.
The effects are the vehicle. The experience is the product.
This maps perfectly to consulting. When a client hires my firm, they think they’re buying a strategy. They’re not. They’re buying confidence in their decision. They’re buying the feeling that they’ve been thorough. They’re buying the ability to tell their board that they’ve done their due diligence. The strategy is the vehicle. The confidence is the product.
Understanding what the customer is actually buying — as opposed to what they think they’re buying — is one of the most fundamental business insights there is. And it applies to performance with absolute precision.
The audience is buying an experience of themselves — of their own wonder, their own laughter, their own amazement. You are the catalyst, not the product. The sooner you internalize this, the better you get at providing it.
The Daily Recalibration
I’ve made this shift sound like a one-time insight. It isn’t. It’s a daily practice.
Every time I prepare for a performance, I have to actively resist the gravitational pull toward self-focus. The natural tendency is to think about what I’m going to do. The disciplined choice is to think about what they’re going to experience. The natural tendency is to worry about my execution. The disciplined choice is to focus on their engagement.
Before every show, I ask myself three questions. Not “What am I going to perform?” but “Who is this audience and what do they need?” Not “Am I prepared technically?” but “Am I prepared to connect with these people?” Not “What’s my strongest material?” but “What will create the strongest experience for this specific group?”
These questions don’t come naturally. They have to be forced. Because the performer’s default orientation is inward, and overcoming that default requires conscious, repeated effort.
But every time I make the shift, the performance improves. Not because I suddenly become more technically skilled. Because I become more attuned to the people in front of me. And that attunement — that active, moment-to-moment awareness of the audience’s experience — is what transforms a demonstration into an event.
They care about themselves. And when you care about them more than you care about you, they can feel it. And that feeling is what they’ll remember long after the effects themselves have faded.