Lance Burton is one of the biggest names in magic these days – particularly if you’re strolling down the Las Vegas strip. The magician has had his own show at the Monte Carlo since it was built in 1996. But life hasn’t always been Vegas lights for Burton. It all started, as so many success stories do, with the impressions of a small child.

Burton grew up in Louisville, Kentucky. When he was 5, his mother took him to her company Christmas party. Harry Collins, a fellow employee and magician on the side, performed at the party. When Burton volunteered to go up on stage and have Collins pull a silver coin from behind his ear, Burton was hooked.

Magic became his passion. Magic sets and books about the subject were on the top of his gift list for birthdays. By age 12, he was performing at parties, and while he was attending Butler High School in the late 1970s, he entered a talent show at a Louisville nightclub. He was invited back, and at age 17 he was doing shows at the club.

While studying at the University of Louisville, Burton worked at a theme park called Tombstone Junction with fellow magician Mac King. They kept busy performing three shows a day, seven days a week.

In 1980 he entered the International Brotherhood of Magicians’ Gold Medal Contest, and no amount of magic could have made his career move any faster after that appearance. He won the coveted gold medal and was invited back in 1981. A man named Bill Larson was in the audience and invited him to move to California to do a show called “It’s Magic.” Burton started that job in October 1981, and by October 28 he was performing on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson. During the appearance, Burton did a 12-minute act that has become one of his signature acts through the years. Making it to The Tonight Show meant Burton had made it big. He opened at the Tropicana in Las Vegas, Nevada, in May 1982 with an eight-week contract. He stayed for nine years. He started a show of his own in 1991 at the Hacienda and moved to the Monte Carlo in 1996, where he continues to perform today. 

Burton knows that his down-to-earth attitude and his hope for the future played a big part in his success. And he doesn’t forget that the road leading to the stage at the Monte Carlo began with a holiday party magic show and a silver coin when he was 5. He realizes how important it is to be a good influence on children and to encourage them to dream big and follow those dreams. And Burton uses the name he has made for himself to move those dreams forward for children everywhere.

For the past decade, he has been involved with a youth program that features classes, question-and-answer sessions and contests for aspiring young magicians.

Burton also does several benefits each month. “I like to donate my time to causes that help children. You want to do all of the shows, but it’s just physically impossible to do every single fundraiser that goes on,” Burton says. “I try to do as many as I possibly can.”

Burton advises children to prepare themselves for life and to make sure they finish their  education. And if they can figure out how to make a living doing what they love, all the better.

Burton certainly appreciates the life he left behind and visits Kentucky and his family’s farm several times a year. He realizes that if magic had not intervened, he would be working on that farm full time. But as luck, or magic, would have it, he managed to make a living with his passion.

“Whatever it is you do for a hobby, see if you can make your living doing that,” Burton says. “And then working isn’t really like work; it’s more like playtime.”

Beyond pursuing something you feel passionate about, a key to success in magic, in Optimism and in life is to focus on what you know works, to combine it with fresh ideas and to then accept feedback – both good and bad – from your audience. It is good to spice things up once in a while and revamp ideas. The performance that captivated Tonight Show audiences 24 years ago is still a key part to Burton’s show, but he throws in new ideas all the time, and he looks to his audience for guidance. “The audience will tell you what’s working in a show and what’s not working and what you need to change.