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, Rockstars. It is your host, Reggie Dawson, and again, welcome to the Being On Stage podcast. Thank you so much for tuning in. Today, I'm feeling just a tad under the weather. I've had a head cold coming on for about four days, and it finally hit last night. Today, we're going to talk about that. We're going to talk about, you know, keep pushing through, even when we're sick, when we're in pain, when we're sleep-deprived. A lot of things happen when we perform. You know, sometimes we're more susceptible to getting sick because we're sleep-deprived, rehearsing, and getting ready for a performance. And other times, maybe we're in a little bit of pain. Maybe we ate something that didn't really agree with us. And I want to talk about that because there's a fine line between pushing through and canceling a show. And I think that a lot of times, performers push to cancel the show rather than try to push through it. And I'm going to talk more about why. But before I get into it, I would like to ask a favor. If you haven't done so recently or at all, head over to the website, beingonstage.com. Put in your name and email. And you'll be subscribed to the Rockstar Lounge. I want to make sure that you're getting the most out of this podcast. And in order to do that, you need to be subscribed to the Rockstar Lounge. That's going to give you even more tips and even more tools that go out after some of the podcast episodes. So if you want to jump on board that train, I really think you should. Head over to beingonstage.com. Scroll to the bottom of the page and put in your name and email. While you're doing that, you can also hit subscribe on the podcast page. And you can automatically be subscribed. Which you should be if you're not already. Back to being sick. So I'm sick. I really don't feel good. We went for a drive today. We drove around for probably like four or five hours. Just kind of driving, making random turns. We do this occasionally. We'll just go on just a random drive for a day. We just bought a new car a couple of months ago. So maybe it's just us kind of breaking in the car. But we went on one of our random drives today. Me, the wife, and the kid. And we ended up like two counties. Okay. And by the time we got home, man, I just wanted to eat something and lay down. And I really had to get this podcast out. So I said, you know what? I got to push through it. I posted a video on Facebook yesterday that said I was going to do it. I just didn't really feel up to it. Today I posted a video on Instagram that said I was going to do it. I really didn't feel up to it. But I said, you know what? I really need to get this episode out there. Because this needs to be heard. So speaking of, we have a group on Facebook completely free to be in it. Tons of performers already in there networking and sharing ideas. Go to beingonstage.com slash group. You'll be able to join the Facebook group and you can participate in conversations there as well. But anyways, I posted these videos and I kind of advertised that, hey, I'm going to do this. There's going to be a podcast out about being sick and performing. And I'm thinking to myself, man, I'm not up to it. I can't do this podcast. There's no way. You know, I'm sniffly. I have a sinus headache. My nose is running. I don't really sound great. My throat is sore. I've been chugging Dayquil like it's. Water, but I really had to put this podcast out there because I feel like this type of podcast. We're talking about being sick and tired. It really needs to happen when I'm sick. Like that's the authenticity that I'm trying to demonstrate. I want to be authentic with you guys. And right now I'm sick. So I'm going to talk about being sick. So when you're sick, doesn't need to be just a head cold or a sinus infection. It could be an earache, a sore throat. Maybe you hurt your arm. Depending on what you do on stage. These aren't necessarily reasons to cancel a show. Now, before I dive in, I'm not trying to offend anybody. Of course, if you're a singer and you have laryngitis, I don't expect you to go on stage. If you're a dancer and you have a twisted ankle, I don't expect you to go on stage. If you're a comedian and you have a broken funny bone, I don't expect you to go on stage. I hope you got that because that was a joke. Like I said, I've been on these medications. I apologize if some of my jokes are a little more corny than usual, but we're going to get through this podcast together. Pushing through. Yes. There's going to be. There's going to be reasons that you're going to need to put off, postpone or cancel a performance. But most of the time, and I say most, it's probably like 60% of the time, it's not always going to be necessary to cancel a show. And here's why. You are going to capture more of your audience by being authentic. And what I mean by being authentic, I mean certain situations when you're at that, like, I'm not really sick, but I'm sick. You should push through and do the show. Your audience is more. It's more forgiving than you give them credit for. Look at the reactions that these performers have gotten when they've canceled shows. I'm talking celebrities, guys. Look at some of the reactions of the fans. It's like, oh, you stubbed your toe and you can't perform. Really, guys? Like, we can't. We can't do that to our fans. Furthermore, that authenticity of being a real human being is going to go so much further than going out there and, you know, being fake. Performers are human. And our audience. Our audience loves when we show them that we are human on stage. They will forgive your mistakes. They will forgive all your shortcomings when we show them that we're just like them. We're normal human beings. We get sick. We lose sleep. We go through hard times. We get hurt. You know, we eat food that doesn't agree with us. They're going to be more forgiving if you're honest and real and push through something like that than if you cancel a show because you don't want to be anything less than amazing. That's bull crap. Being less than amazing is part of being a growing performer. That's the bottom line. If you're always amazing, where are you going to go? Where is the growth? Where is the improvement? In order to keep the growth, you have to be okay with not being amazing sometimes. So you coughed. Maybe you sneezed. Maybe you got an itch. Maybe you got this like bad rash that you need to get checked out unless you literally cannot do what it is that you do on stage because of this sickness or illness or pain. You need to get out there. You need to get out there and push through it for the sake of your audience. We have to work through it because our audience needs us to. So how do you know where that line is when you should cancel versus when you should push through it? For me, for podcasting, podcasting is vocal. I have to talk in order to podcast. My line would be if I didn't have a voice or if I couldn't speak without throwing up. And even if I had to throw up every time I said a couple of sentences, I might try to at least put a two or three minute episode out there and get through it. For my performance. Performance art, because I move around a lot on stage. I've gone on stage with a twisted ankle. I've gone on stage with a broken finger. I've gone on stage with a twisted knee. I've hurt myself on stage and continue to do the show. And I think all of us have done that. The thing you got to realize is once you get going, that adrenaline rush, that that feeling that you get when you're on stage, it's still going to come. It's still going to be there, even if you're not feeling 100 percent performing when you are sick or when you're quote unquote. Not at 100 percent using that a lot, because I feel like that's where the real focus is. It's performers feel like we always have to be 100 percent on stage. And yes, I've said it. You do need to give 150 percent to your audience every time you get on stage, but give them 150 percent does not mean you are feeling 150 percent. If you can drag yourself out there and still capable of doing what you do on stage, so you got to suffer through a headache for, you know, for 20 minutes, so maybe you're going to sit down to sing instead of walk around because your ankle is broken. The point is, if you can drag yourself out there to do it, your audience is going to be so much more grateful knowing that you're going to come out there anyways. It shows that you're committed. It shows that you are passionate. It shows that you are driven and it shows that you are a true star. Don't worry about feeling 100 percent your adrenaline that you get. On stage and that feeling you get, it's going to wash over you anyways and make you give 150 percent because you need to. That's part of what we do. That's part of the lifestyle and the career that we have chosen for ourselves. We have to push through things because there are people that need us to. I don't want to compare performing to like heart surgery and stuff, but think about other jobs. Like how many other jobs can you call out on because you stubbed your toe or because you got a little tickle in the back of your throat? Not many. I know at my day job, we give people attendance points when they call out, even when they're sick. There are some jobs that don't even give you leeway when you're sick. So why are performers the anomaly? Why are we the special case that gets a special privilege if we can call out when we got a little cough? We can't. We still have to go out there and do our job because the audience is our employer and we owe them a damn good show. So we need to get out there and do it. That's about all I have. That's about all I have in me for this podcast, guys. I'm sure you've heard me. I'm kind of been holding back coughing and sniffling, and I apologize if some of them got mixed in. I've really tried to keep it to a minimum, but I wanted to do this for you. I wanted to make this podcast even though I was sick and kind of push through it for you guys. So I hope you enjoyed it. I'm going to go take some medication and try to nourish myself back to health before I have to go back to work on Monday. As always, y'all keep on shining.
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