When I started out back in Louisville, there was Harry Collins. He was my first teacher. He saw that I was so obsessed with magic that he taught me the love of magic.

Burton is crediting his early formation as a magician to mentorship rather than innate talent alone. By naming Louisville and his “first teacher,” he frames his later success as rooted in a local, personal apprenticeship: someone recognized not just ability but an all-consuming fascination (“obsessed with magic”) and responded by nurturing it. The line “he taught me the love of magic” suggests that what was transmitted was an ethic and orientation—wonder, discipline, and devotion to craft—more than a single trick or technique. It’s also a statement about lineage in performance arts: mastery is often inherited through generous instruction and encouragement at the beginning.