Johnny Wu

In 2002 a twelve-year-old boy flew alone from Taipei to Toronto. He spoke three words of English and all of them were useless. On his first week of school he opened a lunchbox of dumplings in a classroom full of kids who had never smelled one. They gave him a new name: Johnny Wonton Wu.

Magic was the first thing that made the other kids walk toward him instead of away. It became his language before English did, then his identity, then his career. His father had a blueprint for his life that did not include a deck of cards. Johnny followed the cards.

Two decades later Johnny has performed for Google, Netflix, Amazon, Meta, Salesforce, Nike, Bulgari and Richard Mille, read minds for Kris Jenner and Maye Musk, hypnotized Airbnb CEO Brian Chesky and performed for Jamie Foxx, Jessica Alba, Magic Johnson, Paris Hilton and Taylor Swift. He appeared on Netflix's Star Search. His company, Omni Magic Entertainment, has earned more than 2,200 five-star reviews since he founded it in 2017.

The keynote came from one night at a Google event, when a woman came up to him after the show and said: "I did everything right, and I hate my life." He has been thinking about her ever since. His TEDx talk, Is Your Success Just an Illusion?, is his answer. His keynote, The Power of Micro Moments, is what he does about it.