We were lucky to catch up with Stephen Gervais recently and have shared our conversation below.
Stephen, first a big thank you for taking the time to share your thoughts and insights with us today. I’m sure many of our readers will benefit from your wisdom, and one of the areas where we think your insight might be most helpful is related to imposter syndrome. Imposter syndrome is holding so many people back from reaching their true and highest potential and so we’d love to hear about your journey and how you overcame imposter syndrome.
I don’t know if one that feels this way ever overcomes imposter syndrome. This to me is the feeling that you’re not good enough or that your skills don’t warrant the fee charged for whatever you’re doing.
Personally, I’ve won multiple awards for various things, been published several times for magic I’ve created, have great reviews, built a nice list of many repeat clients and get constant praise from the public while performing or being mentioned in introductions to others, but I think these are just temporary moments in time that makes the feeling of not being good enough go away for a while, but it seems to always creep back up.
It’s almost like an addict needing their next fix to get buy. You feel great when you win something or have an amazing show, but eventually that wears off and you need something else to re-validate yourself.
I guess what I do is I try to create and perform the best magic I can and perform to the best of my ability for whatever I’m doing, so I know that I gave it my all. Chances are what I did was great but who knows?
I don’t think this feeling ever goes away, but if you keep pushing forward, learning, growing and evolving in the right direction you can keep it at bay.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My specialty is strolling close-up magic for any event and venue. I love mingling and interacting with people, wandering around the event and performing miracles mere inches away from them or at times, in their hands. This along with a parlor show I offer are my bread & butter so to speak.
What I do is very personal, intimate, extremely memorable and mind blowing. I’ve had people recall to me something I did for them or pull out a signed card they kept in their wallet years later because the magic I performed for them had such an impact, they feel it’s something they want to hang on to forever. They may not fully remember the whole trick, but they always remember how that moment made them feel. I think thats pretty cool if you ask me.
Currently, I perform all over the Nashville and middle TN for many types of events. Weddings, Private Parties, Corporate functions, restaurants, galas, conventions and so much more. I don’t perform kid shows, however I do a lot of events for kids but its strolling magic. I traded kid shows for assisted living facilities. I feel the people there appreciate and deserve a show more than performing for a bunch of kids who most likely won’t care about what they saw ten minutes later. There are magicians who specialize in kid shows, but that is not me. I don’t want that headache.
I’m always working on new material for close-up magic and I’m even putting together some new show ideas for the near future. Maybe I’ll see you at one of the sometime. Remember, if you need a magician just look up, The Infamous Magic Steve.
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
When I started in magic almost 30 years ago there was no social media. This I think is the bane of new magicians. They see something on there with a 30 second tutorial and poof they think they can go out and do what I do. They will epically fail!
If you want to know what I did, Its simple.
Read the old books, because that’s where the real secrets of good magic are kept.
Have at least one or two people you can show your tricks you’re working on too that can critique and advise you to make you better and magic stronger.
Practice, Practice, Practice!
It takes time to get good. It takes years to become a real pro.
All the wisdom you’ve shared today is sincerely appreciated. Before we go, can you tell us about the main challenge you are currently facing?
I guess my main challenge is being “new” to Nashville. Let me explain.
I moved back to Tennessee about four years ago from Florida to pursue a career as a fulltime magician. Where I was in Florida was not the place to try and do this full time and I had already spent nineteen years there. I was doing gigs here and there and DJing fulltime in a couple of nightclubs, but when the opportunity arose to get out of there and do this full time, I took it.
It takes so much time to build a business and a brand. You can be the best magician in the world but if nobody knows about you, you won’t get the work. I like to tell people that I’m busy trying to stay busy, and that so true. I’m a one-man show so to speak. I do all the marketing, promoting, networking and on top of that I have to be creative, practice and perform. It’s exhausting but worth it. This is my dream. My only job. If I don’t make it work I will only have myself to blame.
Contact Info:
- Website: Theinfamousmagicsteve.com
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/stephen.gervais.790/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/stephen-gervais-7b29a8288
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/@theinfamousmagicsteve1417
