Hi, Steve Wyrick here. I’m a boy from Texas who has made his dreams come true. But no matter where I live and no matter where my career takes me, I am always a boy from Texas. I love my family and I miss them so it is really a treat when they fly out to meet me, whether I am performing in an arena in Singapore or headlining in Las Vegas. It’s even better when I can go home to Texas and kick off my shoes, curl up in front of a warm fire, and hang out with my friends and family.

Ever since I was little, I’ve been passionate about magic. My mom bought me my first magic set when I was about seven years old and I’d practice for hours and then create my own little shows. My dad passed away when I was nine so I stayed with my grandparents while my mom worked. They were my best audience and they really encouraged me to follow my dream, in particular my sweet grandma who saw something special in me. To this day, I honor her in each show, making her spirit come alive, and never forgetting how important she was and still is in my life. Grandpa, too, was a really important part of my life – we’d go fishing together and he always wore his red baseball cap. He LOVED his red baseball cap. Heck, he would have slept in it had Grandma let him. Whenever I see a red baseball cap, I feel Grandpa’s presence – it’s as if he were standing right next to me – and it gives me chills just thinking about it.

After my dad passed, my mom enrolled me in the Big Brothers and Big Sisters program. I shall never forget how my Big Brother took me fishing and showed me how to put bait on a hook. Later in life, I would become the celebrity spokesman for Big Brothers and Big Sisters and, in 2000, I became a Big Brother to a fine young man whom I, too, took fishing. I can still see the look on his face when he told me that he didn’t know how to put bait on the hook – my heart flooded with memories as I helped him, just as my Big Brother had helped me when I was a youngster. It is moments like these that stay with you your entire life.

I remember how my grandma would grow beautiful flowers in her garden. She especially liked pink roses and she used to say that if you see pink rose petals, something good is going to happen. I believe that the same is true for seeing hummingbirds and bumble bees. Or, could it be that believing that something good is going to happen is the magic?

I love the awareness that Grandma gave me. I see red baseball caps and pink roses all the time (when we were unloading for a show at the White House, I spotted the President jogging around the grounds wearing a red baseball cap) and I know that there is magic all around us if we just open our eyes and our hearts.

My show is made up of special memories like these. Each illusion is based on a moment in time in my life and the magic is an expression of the story, which makes my show a very personal experience. It’s my way of embracing the audience and inviting them into my life.

Sometimes I have to pinch myself to realize that I am not dreaming. I have performed for presidents, kings, queens, princes, princesses and even a sultan and it all started when I performed for 12 of the most important people in my life – my first-grade class!

I think that one of my biggest strengths is that I have never been afraid to fail. I have had some unimaginable successes and more than my share of disappointments but I have never let myself become discouraged. If I ever doubt myself, I think of my grandparents and how they never said “no” when I asked them to pick a card; how they told me that nothing is impossible; how they encouraged me to hold onto my dreams and said that they would hold on to me, and how their love showed me that magic lives within us all.

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