Speaker 1Shut up, and sit down. Welcome to Being On Stage, the only podcast that gives you motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. No matter how you entertain, sing, dance, band, comedian, public speaking, MC, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey, rock stars. It is your host, Reggie Dawson, and this, again, is the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back. Thank you so much for tuning in, whether it's your first time or your 28th time. Thank you so much. You guys are always appreciated. Can you do me a favor? Can you go to iTunes and drop a review and hit subscribe while you're at it? I would really appreciate it. It would mean the world to me. Speaking of meaning the world to me, thank you so much to everybody who has connected with me on Instagram. I greatly appreciate it. Keep it coming. You can find me on Instagram at beingonstage. Diving right in. I've waited a long time to get to this topic, but I feel like this is something that affects us all. Whether you are an entertainer or not, at some point in your life, you're going to have to deal with the big D, drama. First and foremost, drama puts me in a dark place. I've had a lot of it in my career. I've made some poor decisions. I've engaged in conversations. I've had many conversations that I probably should have just walked away from looking back. I've learned a lot, and I'm going to share a little bit of what I learned today. This is probably one of those episodes that I send out a Rockstar Lounge email, so if you haven't done so yet, head over to beingonstage.com. Put in your email address. You'll get my free e-book, Confidence on Stage. You will also be subscribed to the Rockstar Lounge, which is an occasional email that goes out diving deeper into the podcast. So, drama. Drama is all about. It's all about words and just gossip and just nastiness. And honestly, it brings out the worst in everybody. So, drama is like your rumors, your holding grudges, your being offended by absolute bullcrap, purposely being rude to people to make a point, being overly critical just to make yourself feel superior. Now, I will say, the people that are entertaining, we're not usually the ones that cause the drama. Occasionally, we are, but those entertainers usually don't last very long. We're not the ones that are getting beaten alive, usually by the audience, because the audience doesn't do drama either, truthfully. But drama is like just. It's this nasty scab that usually ends up getting picked open until you're bleeding out all over the place. And it comes from just people that can't keep to themselves and have to be the center of attention everywhere. They're called drama queens. And this. I mean, this term has been around for a long time. So, a drama queen is like. They overplay everything. Like, they upplay everything. Like, they got cut off in traffic. It's like an hour freaking story telling you about how they got cut off in traffic. A person that causes drama, they usually just can't get over things. Like, nothing is an easy fix. There's no minor issue. Everything is major, and everything makes them miserable. They can't really keep friends or relationships. They just kind of float through life, making everybody miserable. A lot of times, a person that causes drama, what we call. They stir the pot. And that means that, you know, there could be some obvious tension between two people. And, you know, maybe it's just a conversation that hasn't been had yet. Well, the pot stirrer will talk to one of those people, and then go back to the other one of those people, tell them what the first person said, and keep going back and forth between them until it's like this huge feud. And they haven't even associated. Like, person A and person B haven't even talked to each other. And this pot stirrer. Pot stirrer is going in the middle, causing all these problems. That's drama. That's complete drama. They stir the pot. They make everything. Everything is a larger-than-life problem that you just can't understand what's going on with them. Ever. It's ridiculous. And some of it I've kind of done to myself by, you know, I've engaged with conversations that I shouldn't have engaged in. And, you know, sometimes I've given unsolicited advice, and that leads. That leads to some tension between me and that person, because maybe they didn't like the advice that I gave them. And they weren't asking for it. I just offered it to them. That can cause some drama, too, because then all of a sudden they go to their friends, like, Oh my God, can you believe what Reggie said to me? And then their friends all talk about it, and they're all pot stirrers. Because if you've got one drama queen, they usually travel in packs, and they all stir each other's pot together. It's just. That's what it is. It's. I hate drama. It took me a long time to hate drama. Sometimes it feels good to be a part of it. Because you're the center of attention, and everybody's talking about you. But keep in mind, like, truthfully, what goes around comes around. Because you may be the center of attention, and maybe you are saying a couple of things about this person or that person. You're just engaging in friendly conversation. But what you don't realize is because drama queens travel in packs, you're probably talking to a fellow drama queen. And so they're going to turn around and stir the pot even worse. And it's just going to keep building and building and building until it's just overflowing. And it's going to keep building with nasty drama bull crap. I'm trying to keep it clean. Drama puts me in a dark place. I'm really trying to keep it clean. One of the biggest things that happened to me with drama was I did a performance training. I did it completely free. I mean, we were talking, like, eight years ago. I would have these entertainers come over to my house. And I think I told this story a couple episodes back. But I'd have them come over to my house, and they, you know, we would work on their shows. And we would work on certain topics. And they would turn around and tell the show director at the local club that I was, you know, picking on them and throwing things at them and treating them like crap. And they would tell their friends and their fans. And it's just really bad stuff. I ended up getting fired because of the two of them. There was one other person that I coached after that before I gave up coaching for a while. And this person was, he was really good. Like, he had a lot of potential and could have went. And basically what happened was he felt offended because I helped another entertainer who was also one of my, one of my, I don't want to call them students or clients because they're like my friends. Like, they call me like, like I'm like a father figure to them in the entertainment industry. But so the first person I ever coached, I had helped them with a contest that they were entering. And it just so happens that he was competing against a person that I was coaching at that current moment. We'll call him Steve is the original client. And Joe is the newer client. And I helped them both equally. But in the, in the final competition, so, you know, Steve went up and did his bit. And Joe felt that I had helped Steve more than I had helped him and had even given him pieces of my own show that I had won that particular contest with years, you know, a few years back. And it wasn't the case. It was assumptions made and conversation had never been had. And all of a sudden I was doing a show for 30 people, all of which were friends with Joe, none of which clapped, none of which tipped. They didn't cheer. They completely watched me on stage and didn't make a noise afterwards just to, I guess, get back at me. And that's drama. Like you're causing these actions and you're affecting people's shows and you're affecting the audience's natural reaction because you have a problem. And you haven't come and have a conversation with me about it. That's an issue. If you have an issue, that's causing drama. If you have an issue with somebody, you got to suck it up and you got to go to them and you got to talk to them about it. I've talked now for two episodes past about having these conversations with people when something's bothering you. You have to talk about it. You have to get it out there respectfully. Get it out there. If they react negatively, that's on them. Theirs will come. But you have to get it out there. Don't become a pot stirrer. Don't turn around and do something to them to get back at them. Don't hold grudges. The best thing you can do to avoid drama is just let it go. Speak your piece. State what you're having an issue with. Try to work through it. If you get a negative reaction, let it go. There's a few things that you can do to avoid drama and that's one of them is just have that professional conversation and let it go. Secondly, mind your own business. Always tell the truth, be authentic and be yourself, and just keep focusing on you because if you're focused on you and your own growth and your own performance, then no one else is going to be able to bring you down no matter what type of drama they come with. You can diffuse drama by ignoring it and that's really the only way to do it. Keep on shining everybody.
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