The Million Dollar Question (Part I)

The Million Dollar Question (Part I)
By Jeff Stone

What do you do for a living? Are you a Doctor? A Dentist? A Janitor? A Teacher? A Salesman? An Engineer? A Programmer? What are you? That’s the million dollar question: What do you do for a living? If that’s the million dollar question, what’s the million dollar answer? By the end of the next few paragraphs, you’ll know how to spot the million dollar question and how to give the million dollar answer.

Currently, my income is from the following sources:

1. My Full Time Job – Director of IT Department at an Accounting School (93% of my income)
2. Freelance web development/programming/tech support (3% of my income)
3. Magic/Comedy Gigs (3% of my income)
4. Stone Cold Magic Product Sales (1% of my income)

Those numbers are, of course approximate, and only represent the first 2 quarters of this year. Last year, the numbers were much different as were the years prior. In past years, magic products and gigs were a much greater percentage of my income.

I took a hiatus from performing magic for a brief period to finish up my degree last year which opened up some incredible opportunities with my employer. The hiatus is over, and I’m ramping up again getting more gigs and working more DVD and Book Projects, and so by the end of the year, the percentages will change again.

However, even with the change, the majority of my income for the next few years will still come from my full time job. My long term plan is to reverse that, but it won’t be for a while. I really enjoy my job and the people I work with, but I also really enjoy performing magic and teaching magic, so eventually I’ll have to come to terms with who I really want to be or maybe I want to always be both.

My corporate gigs always pay extremely well, and you only need a few of those gigs to “retire” from a job, but why retire when you love it so much? I’ve been doing magic my whole life, and I’ve been doing it professionally for 15ish years. I’ve been doing computer programming my whole life, and I’ve been doing it professionally for about 7 or 8 years. Both are a huge part of who I am, so it’s a tough decision. Do I give up one, or can I handle both.

Ultimately, I think magic will win because there is much more freedom when you write your own paycheck by getting your own gigs, but only time will tell.

So if you’ve made it this far, you may be wondering why I’m sharing all of this with you. Basically I was attempting to put in writing my inner dialogue about me and about how I perceive myself and my future self. If you have dreams of performing professionally, then you have this same type of dialogue going on in your own mind. Do not confuse professional with full time. Even I eventually eliminate everything except for gigs, I still only plan to do it part time.

You can be a pro and still have other sources of income and security. So remember back to the million dollar question: what do you do for a living? The answer I give depends on how much time I have available in my schedule… sounds crazy right?

Here’s what I mean: in the past few months, I’ve turned down several gigs because I did not have time to do them. However, over the past few weeks I was finally available to accept a couple of gigs because I’ve freed up some of my time at work by hiring a couple more people.

If I were talking to someone a month ago and was asked, “so what do you do for a living,” my answer would have been, “I’m a programmer.” The answer was used for several reasons. First, it’s the easiest one to explain, and most people know what it means. The second reason will become clear in a moment after I explain what my current answer to this question is.

Now when people say to me, “so what do you do for a living,” I say, “I’m a magician” or “I’m an entertainer” or “Corporate Entertainment” or “Standup Comedy” or “Public Speaker” etc.

You get the idea. What do you think happens when I answer with one of those answers? The person, inevitably, asks me for more details, and the conversation ultimately ends in a business card exchange. Which leads to gigs. Not always of course, but often enough for sure.

So you probably can see what my second reason for saying “I’m a programmer” is. When I say that I’m a programmer, I don’t put myself in a position to get a gig because the conversation never goes down that road because they don’t know that I do gigs. And I’m too busy or don’t want any gigs, so it works out.

Well now that I’m back in the gig mode and the I-have-more-time mode, I DO want gigs, so when I’m asked what I do for a living, the million dollar answer is “I’m an Entertainer” or something along those lines.

If you want more gigs and you want to make money with magic, then when you are asked what you do for a living, do not answer with the phrase, “I’m a doctor” or “I’m a sales manager” etc… You need to say, “I’m a magician.”

Obviously simply saying, “I’m a magician” does not land you the gig. You need to know what to do from there, how to talk to the person about what you do, how to get his/her card and give your card, etc. We’ll save those details for next month’s No Stone Left Unturned.

For now, put some thought into whether you’re a “magician”, “corporate entertainer”, “comedian”, etc… pick one of those based on your personality and your show, and you’ll have your million dollar answer to the million dollar question.

Next month… how to use the million dollar question and answer to build rapport and get the gig. Until Next Month…

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