By Casey Neill
“Everything that I was rejected for is now everything they accept me for.”
Illusionist Cosentino urged about 200 Keysborough College Year 9 and 10 students to stay true to themselves, even if they were considered ‘different’.
“I was constantly trying to adjust and change and fit the moulds and fit the trends,” he said.
He’s now one of the most successful magicians in the world.
Cosentino returned to his roots for the speaking spot and performance on Monday 27 March, having grown up in Dandenong North, Lysterfield and Endeavour Hills.
He told the students that he read his first words at age 12.
The delay was put down to “learning difficulties”. A magic book he discovered in a Casey library helped him to overcome those difficulties.
His mum, a school principal, read instructions for performing the magic tricks aloud and demonstrated the instructions.
“It wasn’t just listening to a story anymore, it was applying it,” Cosentino said.
His confidence grew as his reading skills – and magic skills – improved.
“I became obsessed by it,” he said.
“Magic became my life.
“It allowed me to be creative.”
And he had to be creative to make a career from the craft.
Cosentino finished Year 12 with an ATAR score of 90 and was accepted into a Bachelor of Business majoring in marketing at Monash University.
He took an enduring leave of absence after a year of study to pursue his passion.
But there were no magic schools or teachers, and no one’s footsteps to follow in.
“I had to create my own path because there was no path, there was no blueprint,” he said.
He said the jobs the students would have in the future weren’t even created yet.
“The only way we can get you prepared is to teach you to be creative, to think outside the box, to solve problems,” he said.
Cosentino comes up with an idea for a trick and works backwards through the steps he’ll need to achieve the outcome he’s after.
“Dream big and then work backwards,” he said.
He spent 15 years trying to establish a career. He was told he didn’t have the right look, that magic wasn’t popular.
Australia’s Got Talent producers had been asking Cosentino to appear on the Channel 7 show, but he’d been turning down the offer because he worried about how he’d be presented.
In 2011 he accepted on the grounds that his successes and failures would both make the cut.
“It was out of sheer desperation that I decided to do Australia’s Got Talent,” he said.
“That’s when you get the longest lasting change if you can channel it positively.”
He made the top two and leveraged off his exposure to millions of people.
He successfully pitched television shows the networks had turned down earlier.
“People’s perceptions had changed,” he said.
“It was as if everyone caught up.”
“I think about where I would be if mum hadn’t read that magic book to me.”
