There is a moment from a show in Graz, maybe two years ago, that I think about when this topic comes up. I was performing at a corporate event — an insurance company, about eighty people, the usual post-dinner entertainment slot. The show was going well. Good energy, strong reactions, the audience was with me.
Then, during my closer, something went wrong. A timing issue — nothing the audience would notice as a mistake, but I knew it was off. And because I was still in a phase of my performing life where I equated confidence with control, my reaction to the wobble was to push harder. I got louder. More emphatic. I leaned into the effect with a kind of forcefulness that was supposed to communicate confidence but actually communicated something else entirely.
After the show, a colleague of mine who had been in the audience — a fellow consultant, someone I trust to be honest — said: “Felix, the show was great, but that last bit? You came on a little strong. Like you were trying to prove something.”
He was right. And what he had identified, without using the word, was arrogance. Not the malicious kind. Not the kind where you look down on your audience. But the defensive kind — the kind that emerges when a performer compensates for insecurity by projecting dominance. The kind that pushes the audience away instead of drawing them in.
That night was the beginning of my education in the difference between confidence and arrogance, and it is a distinction I am still refining.
The Confusion Is Understandable
The reason confidence and arrogance get confused so easily is that they share surface features. Both involve a performer who seems sure of himself. Both involve strong vocal delivery, decisive movement, and an absence of hesitation. From the outside, for a few seconds, they can look identical.
The difference is direction. Confidence is directed outward, toward the audience. A confident performer is focused on giving the audience an experience. The sureness they project is in service of the audience’s enjoyment — “I have this under control so you can relax and enjoy yourself.” The confidence says: Trust me, we are going to have a great time.
Arrogance is directed inward, toward the performer’s ego. An arrogant performer is focused on demonstrating their own abilities. The sureness they project is in service of their own status — “Look how good I am. Look what I can do.” The arrogance says: Admire me.
Weber captures this distinction through his Superman analogy in Maximum Entertainment. Superman is confident — he knows he can save the day, and that confidence allows others to feel safe. But Superman is not arrogant. He does not rescue people in order to be praised. He rescues them because that is what needs to happen. The confidence is in service of the mission, not the ego.
The arrogant performer, by contrast, is Superman flexing in front of a mirror. Technically impressive. Completely missing the point.
How I Used to Be Arrogant Without Knowing It
Looking back at my early performing career with honest eyes, I can see arrogance in places where at the time I would have called it confidence. It is an uncomfortable recognition, but it is necessary.
When I first started doing shows, I was deeply insecure about my abilities. I had come to magic as an adult, I had no performing background, and I was acutely aware that there were teenagers at magic conventions who could do things with a deck of cards that I could not dream of. My response to that insecurity was to overcompensate.
I did this in several ways. I over-explained my effects, subtly making sure the audience understood how difficult what I was doing was. I dropped references to my magic knowledge, mentioning obscure performers or historical facts in a way that was supposed to establish my credentials. I reacted to strong audience reactions with a kind of knowing look — a “yes, I know, impressive, isn’t it?” expression that I thought was charming but was actually insufferable.
None of this was conscious. I was not thinking “I will now be arrogant.” I was thinking “I need them to take me seriously.” But the effect on the audience was the same regardless of my intention. I was asking them to admire me instead of inviting them to enjoy themselves. I was making the show about my competence instead of their experience.
The subtle form of arrogance in magic — the form I was practicing — is the challenge attitude turned inside out. Darwin Ortiz writes extensively about how some audience members view magic as a challenge, a contest between their intelligence and the performer’s skill. What Ortiz identifies from the audience side, I was doing from the performer side. I was treating each effect as a demonstration of my ability rather than as an experience I was creating for the audience. The implicit message was: “Can you figure this out? No? See how good I am.”
That is arrogance, even when it comes wearing the mask of professionalism.
What Confidence Actually Looks Like
The shift from arrogance to confidence happened gradually, and it happened as I got better at my craft. This is not a coincidence — I will talk about the relationship between preparation and confidence in the next post. But the visible markers of the shift are worth describing.
A confident performer is relaxed. Not sloppy or casual, but physically at ease. Their body language communicates comfort — they are comfortable on stage, comfortable with the material, comfortable with the audience. There is no tension in their shoulders, no tightness in their voice, no frantic energy in their movements. They move with purpose but without urgency.
A confident performer listens. They pay attention to the audience, not just in the broad sense of reading the room but in the specific sense of actually listening when someone speaks. When a volunteer says something, a confident performer hears it and responds to it. An arrogant performer is already thinking about their next line.
A confident performer gives credit. When something wonderful happens — a reaction, a laugh, a moment of genuine astonishment — a confident performer allows the moment to belong to the audience. An arrogant performer claims it. The difference is visible in body language: the confident performer opens up, smiles, maybe steps back slightly to let the audience’s reaction fill the space. The arrogant performer steps forward, nods, absorbs the attention like a sponge.
A confident performer makes mistakes gracefully. When something goes wrong — and things always go wrong — a confident performer acknowledges it with humor or ease and moves on. An arrogant performer either pretends it did not happen (which the audience does not believe) or gets flustered (which shatters the illusion of control). The confident performer’s message is: “That happened, it is not a big deal, let’s keep going.” The arrogant performer’s message is either “That did not happen” or “That should not have happened to someone of my caliber.”
A confident performer is generous. They share the spotlight with volunteers, with the audience, with the moment itself. They do not need to be the center of every reaction. They understand that their role is to create experiences, not to receive adulation. Weber makes this point beautifully when he discusses letting volunteers get the laughs — all laughter is a desired reaction, and a generous performer understands that a laugh aimed at a volunteer’s quip reflects well on the show as a whole.
Building the Muscle
If confidence is not arrogance, and if confidence is the quality audiences respond to most strongly, how do you build it? Here is what I have learned.
First, confidence comes from competence. I cannot overstate this. The single most effective way to be confident on stage is to know your material cold. Not mostly. Not well enough. Cold. When your technique is so solid that you do not have to think about it, when your script is so internalized that you could deliver it in your sleep, when your show is so rehearsed that every transition flows without effort — then confidence is not something you have to generate. It is what is left when you remove the anxiety of not being prepared.
Second, confidence comes from experience. There is no substitute for performing in front of real audiences. Every show you do, whether it goes well or poorly, deposits a small amount of confidence in your account. Over time, those deposits accumulate into a baseline of stage comfort that cannot be shaken by a single bad night. Early in my career, one difficult audience could destroy my confidence for weeks. Now, a difficult audience is just information — useful data about what to adjust, not a referendum on my worth as a performer.
Third, confidence comes from honest self-assessment. This sounds counterintuitive — how does identifying your weaknesses build confidence? But the answer is that confidence based on self-delusion is fragile. It shatters the moment reality intrudes. Confidence based on honest self-knowledge is resilient. When you know exactly what you are good at and exactly what you need to improve, you perform from a place of clarity rather than defensiveness. You do not need to prove anything because you already know where you stand.
Fourth, confidence comes from caring about the audience more than about yourself. This is the fundamental reorientation that separates confidence from arrogance. When your primary concern is “Am I doing well?” you are in arrogance territory. When your primary concern is “Are they having a good time?” you are in confidence territory. The shift in focus from self to audience is the single most transformative change I made in my performing life.
The Muscle Metaphor
I call confidence a muscle because, like a muscle, it grows through use and atrophies through disuse. Every performance is a rep. Every successful interaction with an audience adds strength. Every recovery from a mistake builds resilience.
But like a muscle, confidence can also be injured. A truly terrible show, a hostile audience, a public failure — these can tear the confidence muscle in ways that take time to heal. The injury is real. The recovery is necessary. And the worst thing you can do is compensate for the injury by flexing harder, which is the arrogance trap.
The healthy approach is the same as with a physical injury: acknowledge it, give it appropriate rest, then gradually rebuild through progressive exposure. Do smaller shows. Perform for friendlier audiences. Rebuild the foundation before attempting the heavy lifts again.
I went through this after a particularly rough show in Vienna about eighteen months ago, an event where the room setup was terrible, the audience was distracted, and nothing I did seemed to land. I left that show convinced I was not cut out for this. My confidence was shattered. My next booking was two weeks later, and I spent those two weeks dreading it.
What saved me was scaling back. Instead of trying to perform my full show at the next gig, I did a shorter set with my strongest material. I focused entirely on connecting with the audience rather than impressing them. I gave myself permission to be imperfect. And the show went beautifully — not because I was suddenly better, but because I was performing from a place of genuine engagement rather than defensive overcompensation.
The Daily Practice
Confidence is not something you achieve once and then have forever. It is something you practice, daily, through every interaction with your craft. Every rehearsal that sharpens your material. Every session of honest self-evaluation. Every moment where you choose to focus on the audience’s experience rather than your own ego.
The performer the audience wants to see is not the one who is trying to prove how good he is. The performer the audience wants to see is the one who already knows he is good enough, and has freed himself to focus entirely on giving them an experience worth remembering.
That is confidence. And it is available to anyone willing to do the work.