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Anna DeGuzman started practicing magic as a way to keep herself entertained as a kid. Now, the 27-year-old has turned her hobby into a career and performs for star-studded audiences around the world. DeGuzman is one of the few women in magic and got her start by performing for friends and posting videos of her card tricks on social media when she was a teenager. She got enough buzz to be featured on "Penn & Teller: Fool Us," "Australia's Got Talent," and in 2023 was the runner-up of "America's Got Talent," becoming the first-ever female magician to make the finale. She's hit a few career highlights already, like performing with her idol David Blaine and working with Complex to host her own YouTube show. DeGuzman says her success so far comes down to three big lessons: Learn to fail in front of people DeGuzman still gets nervous when performing, but she has a magic formula for staying calm under pressure. Practice helps, but at a certain point, she says developing an improvisational mindset helps her recover quickly when things don't go as planned. That allows her to take big risks, like trying a trick for the first time ever while televised on AGT. "The thing about magic is you can't practice in front of a mirror," she tells CNBC Make It. "It's something you have to just go out and do and test and fail for real people. That's the only way you learn what works." Just as important as rehearsing a trick is knowing how to recover when mistakes inevitably happen, she says. "Magic is unexpected. People don't know how it ends. So if you mess up, you can kind of just get away with it and veer off and do something else" while keeping the audience engaged, she says. The magician's role is to "lead you onto a journey and to get people to trust you," she adds. Make everything you do look like magic DeGuzman thinks of magic as keeping the door open for potential and being delightfully surprised by what can happen. For example, despite her mom's encouragement to consider a more traditional job, DeGuzman says she's chased after opportunities to make connections with other entertainers and grow in her magic career. Those opportunities have allowed her to travel back home to perform for family in the Philippines, to galas, and to stadiums like a recent appearance at a charity event for Russell Wilson and Ciara. The mindset isn't just for magicians, she says: "Whether you're a singer, an accountant, a lawyer, just live life that way, as if you have the opportunity [for] serendipity to happen." That can come down to how you carry yourself and interact with others, she adds. "Make them believe in the good and the possible" with the impression you leave people. Stay humble, but confident DeGuzman says she's often reminded by her mom to stay humble and be confident in her career choices, especially as a young woman in the male-dominated space of performing magic. She sees it as both a responsibility and an opportunity. "I think there are many incredible women getting into the space, and I love to see it, but I felt this pressure as being one of the first to ever make it" as far as she did on national TV, DeGuzman says, referring to performers like Léa Kyle and Solange Kardinaly as some of her peers. "I have so much respect for them, and we're all in that same boat of feeling like we have a lot of young people, especially young girls, watching us," DeGuzman says. She tries to message her humble but confident mindset back to other young women. "Some girls come up to me and say, 'I always wanted to get into magic.' And I'm like, 'Why don't you?'" DeGuzman says. "You deserve to be here." Disclosure: Comcast is the parent company of NBCUniversal, which owns CNBC and NBC. Versant would become the new parent company of CNBC upon Comcast's planned spinoff of Versant. Want to level up your AI skills? Sign up for Smarter by CNBC Make It's new online course, How To Use AI To Communicate Better At Work. Get specific prompts to optimize emails, memos and presentations for tone, context and audience. Plus, sign up for CNBC Make It's newsletter to get tips and tricks for success at work, with money and in life, and request to join our exclusive community on LinkedIn to connect with experts and peers.
