Speaker 1Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson here, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back. Thanks for tuning in. If you haven't done so already, please leave a 5-star rating on this podcast in iTunes. I would greatly appreciate it. Can we talk about distractions? I get distracted so easily. How about you? Do you get distracted? And I'm not just talking like small, tiny tasks. I'm talking like big, monstrous tasks that you just, you get distracted from. Like, and it could be the small things, truthfully. It could be the small things that you've committed to do day in and day out, and hey, distractions happen. But on the other hand, distractions are also destructive. Case in point, I do this podcast every day for you, the performer. Today, this morning, I got distracted. I didn't do my podcast. I was talking about my daughter's curriculum. She's doing homeschool. This is our first year going like full-on homeschool, and we're looking at different curriculums we can use and kind of putting together the plan for the year and how we're going to go about it. And I was really getting into the discussion with my daughter and my wife, and I just, I said, you know what, I'll do the podcast tonight. We're on a roll, you know, let's keep going with what we're doing. And so I worked on it, and I was like, all the way up until the time I had to leave for work, left for work, dot, dot, dot. Came home tonight, remembered, hey, I got a podcast. Can we, you know, we got to go straight home. I got a podcast. I got off on time. So came straight home. Then our neighbor had like a terrifying experience. A palmetto bug was on her leg, which, oh, I live in Florida. Palmetto bugs, completely natural. If you don't know what they are, they're like two inch long bugs. Palmetto bugs that just happen in Florida. They're gross. I'm not going to lie. They freaked her out completely. That was a distraction. And then my wife plays video games, Assassin's Creed, by the way, and I play them too. So she lets me fight the bad guys sometimes because I like to do the fight stuff. I don't like to do all the puzzles. I just like to do the fighting. I'm weird like that. So I got distracted again. And next thing you know, I'm like, you know, it's I look at the clock. It's eleven thirteen. I haven't podcast yet. And I have a commitment. I made a commitment just like you make a commitment. You know, you commit to yourself. I'm going to design this outfit or I'm going to choreograph this portion of the show or I'm going to I'm going to work for this, you know, work on this song or that song or, you know, you commit to yourself what you're going to do. And I did, too. I committed at the beginning of July. I was going to podcast every single day in July. Oh, tomorrow, by the way, July. Thirty first in celebration of my completion. Of podcasting every day, I'm actually going to talk about what I learned over the past 31 days and how you can apply it as a performer. But today, man, I got distracted. I almost got pulled away from my commitment, but I recognize it and I realized it. And for the first time, I mean, not the first time, because I mean, I have been doing this for 30 days. I didn't procrastinate. I didn't stop at the refrigerator for a drink, which I'm kind of feeling like I should have at this point. You can probably hear it in my voice. I'm getting a little dry. I didn't stop for a snack. I didn't even kiss my wife. Truthfully, I came right into the bedroom. I sat down at the computer and I pressed record. And that's what you got to do, too. You know, your your audience is counting on you to put together this really amazing experience for them. And it doesn't matter what you do. I mean, of course, it matters what you do on stage. But to me and for the sake of this podcast and what you take away from it, it doesn't matter what you do on stage. You know, you could you can sing, you can dance, you can play an instrument, you can juggle, you could be an acrobat, you you could be a magician or a comedian or a speaker. Whatever you do on stage. It you're going to get distracted from going after your goals. And it's going to listen. I said that before. I said that the goal for myself podcast every day. I hope you set a goal with me to do something. If you haven't. Hey, August 1st is right around the corner. You could set that goal and it doesn't have to be the first of the month. Just commit to do something every single day. I started with just a week. And at the end of the week, I announced on this podcast that, hey, I'm going to go for the month and I've done it. Because when you make a commitment to yourself, it is one of the most sacred commitments you can make. And distractions can destroy that commitment to yourself. So how do you deal with them? Or, you know, I think the one question that everybody asks is how do I keep from getting distracted? And you're not going to like the answer because you don't. We're performers. We're creative individuals. Our whole point of our being, you know, performers is we take in the atmosphere around us. We compartmentalize it inside of us. And then we find a way to explain it to the world through a performance. That's what we do. Now, you didn't know that's what you did. Yeah. You take in the world around you. You create a feeling or an emotion about it. And then you present that to everybody else. That's that's what you do. You create the experience and the you communicate feelings and emotions to people. You bring it out of them. They're counting on you to not be distracted. So how do you keep from being distracted? You can't. You can't. Distractions are going to happen. Why? Let's see. We're humans. We probably have a job. Some of us have kids, spouses, other family stuff going on. God forbid something terrible is going on in your life right now. Maybe you're going through a valley. You know, financial crises, legal crises. And I know crazy. It's probably crises. But, you know, whatever. A financial crisis, a legal crisis, a medical crisis, a psychological crisis, a social crisis, a family. I have probably already said family. There are all sorts of situations that you could be in that can distract you from the goals and the dreams that you have for yourself, from the vision of the performer that you want to be. But. You can't let the. And I'm not. Listen, I'm not saying that, you know, knock on wood, I hope your grandma's OK, but I'm not saying, you know, grandma's in the hospital, you know, but hey, you got to rehearse anyways. But. I don't want to be that guy, but I kind of have to be that guy, you know, that. Yeah, you do have to rehearse anyway. You do have to practice. You do have to continue to work at what you're doing and eliminate the distractions. And those are big distractions. I mean, I know I took I went from video game to grandma in the hospital, but. They're almost the same. I mean, the difference is, is grandma in the hospital. It's outside of your control. The distractions that you can control. Those are the really dangerous ones. But listen, let me back up before I get into the really dangerous ones. If there's something like seriously, seriously going on, it's still a distraction. And I'm not saying that you need to eliminate it, but you do need to find a way to. Still continue with what you need to do as a performer. Spend the time with your family. Be there in the hospital. Be there for your kids. Be there for your spouse. Be there for the friend that needs you. Deal with the financial crisis. But you need to still continue working at what you're going to be doing on stage. That cannot stop that commitment to yourself to do something every day that has to be maintained. Now, the really dangerous distractions are the ones that you can actually. Actually control, such as playing video games, watching television, scrolling through social media. Those are the distractions that you can simply make the choice to shut it off. I know I say it's my God. I say it to my daughter all the time. Get off the phone. There's a life right here in front of your face. Remove the screen. It's the same thing, though. I'm no better than you at this. I am learning. I just told you how I almost didn't podcast on day 30 of podcast every day for a month because of a video game distraction. So I'm no better than you. But together, together we can conquer this thing. You know, we can conquer these distractions. Don't believe me. Try me. I dare you. Jump on my calendar. I'll call you being on stage dot com slash calendar. That's all you got to do. Put in your name, email, pick a date and time and. We'll get a plan together to eliminate these distractions and set you on that path to go after the dreams and the vision of the performer that you are meant to be the one that you were born to be. That's where you need to be, my friend, and all these distractions that are popping up in the video game. You know what? Technology is a distraction in a way. But, you know, this is the guy that's podcasting in his bedroom into a microphone. And a computer saying technology is a distraction. Yeah, look at that oxymoron. But technology is. is a distraction. You can use it for good. You can use it for evil, or it can just be there to distract you. My wife makes fun of me because I play, I play some of the mindless games. Like I'm talking like the ones where all you do is sit there and tap or swipe. And I get a kick out of them because I don't know. I just, I like that mindless stuff that you can do once in a while. um and she she freaking hates i mean she detests those mindless tapping swiping games i kind of get a kick out of it once in a while but that's that's kind of what you're doing with the distractions with the scrolling social media you're mindlessly swiping up think about that it takes hardly any thought to scroll through instagram double tap swipe double tap swipe double tap swipe double tap swipe facebook like swipe like swipe you see a pattern twitter i don't know what you do on twitter i'll be the first to tell you uh i suck at twitter if someone could help me please somebody help me send me an email i'll be with twitter reggie at being on stage.com please i need to understand i think i'm getting distracted again from the point of this podcast you see how easy it is oh man i just like made my own point without even meaning to but you see how easy it is to get distracted i mean i just got distracted by something that i said on my podcast about distractions but you have to make the choice to refocus that is a conscious choice that you have to make to refocus on what you're going to do get up off the couch get up out of the chair get up out of bed pick up that instrument pick up that microphone look in the mirror and look at the camera record yourself put something out on social media watch the video do the video play the video record whatever do something this podcast might be distracting you after this podcast here's the deal sometimes i go for 17 minutes i'm going to wrap this bad boy up at 14 that gives you three minutes to do something with your dream post on social media record a quick video i dare you and then do it again tomorrow take three to five minutes every i mean shoot my podcast takes me about 40 minutes but take take three to five minutes every single day for the next seven days and record a quick video on social media of you doing exactly what it is you love to do and in case i don't tell you this enough i believe in you keep on shining
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