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, emcee, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer,
Speaker 2this is the show for you. Hey Rockstars, what's going on? It's your host Reggie Dawson, and thank you again for tuning in to the Being On Stage podcast. Have you ever gotten the silent treatment? I'm talking no communication, zero. Will not talk to you face to face, will not call, will not text, will not email, won't even like respond to a Facebook message or a like or a poke. Radio silence. I hate when performers do this to each other. And it happens all too often. Because we fail to communicate. And it doesn't matter what you do in the performing arts field. It doesn't matter what level you're at. Amateur, professional, wherever you consider yourself. It does not matter. The importance of communication is ridiculous. All the time we fail to have important conversations. We fail to communicate because why? We're too busy. We don't have time in our lives to keep up with everybody that we interact with. I get it. No matter what you do on stage, you're going to live. You're going to live a crazy life. Always busy. Always running. Weird hours. I get it. But communication is of the utmost importance if we're all going to be successful. So before I dive a little deeper into that, I just want to take a moment. You're listening to the Being On Stage podcast. The only podcast that gives you the motivation, inspiration, and confidence to be better on stage. I coach performers to engage with their audience, connect with their fans, and to just all around be genuine, authentic, and have fun on stage. If you want more information. You can head over to the website, beingonstage.com. Drop your email into the subscribe form and you will be subscribed to the Rockstar Lounge in which you will get more tips and tools to help you in your performance career. I received an email from someone that I interacted with on Instagram. I liked one of her posts that was about performing on stage. You know, I like performing on stage. When she sent me this email, she described something that happened to her and her band. They had a singer. They had been working. They had been working together for about six or seven months, rehearsing and preparing for their gigs. And they had their first gig. And, you know, your first time performing in a group. I mean, your first time performing, period, is going to be nerve-wracking as hell. Your first time performing as a group, it's a little uneasy. You may not have fully established that on-stage chemistry together yet. But you've got to keep progressing with time. You've got to keep at it. You've got to stay in the game if you're going to be successful. So they had their first gig. And the way it was explained. The way it was explained in the email was that the woman that emailed me, she was the guitarist. She had to remind the singer about a solo coming up. And the singer apparently took it as her asking to take a solo on stage. But basically what happened is the singer felt that the first gig did not go well. And she checked out. And I don't mean she just checked out. I mean, she cut them off. She went radio silent. She didn't return their calls. She didn't return their emails. She stopped showing up for rehearsal. They ended up having to cancel gigs because they couldn't get a hold of this girl. When they finally canceled gigs, they couldn't get a hold of this girl. When they finally canceled all their gigs, she emailed them and let them know how offended she was. How unprofessional they were. And how embarrassed she was that she was basically being forced to give someone else a solo. Which the solo apparently was supposed to be in there. So it's not like anyone did anything wrong. So she checked out for like three or four weeks. And then they canceled all their gigs. And then she finally reached out and told them what was going on. It's kind of like, hello, we've been reaching out to you for weeks. And what did you think was going to happen? So a couple weeks later, I guess. The guitar, the lady that had emailed me, she ran into the singer at another event. Kind of like planned to run into. But she ran into her at another event. And, you know, she ended up getting like ten minutes to chat with her and everything. Apparently, the singer was just completely, didn't think that they were a good fit. Her with the band. Didn't really want any more part of it. And then she said something that, I'll tell you, it's taken me two days since receiving this email to podcast about this. Because I was so pissed off when I read this. Because it's happened to me. This is what the singer said to the singer. To the guitarist. When I'm done with a project and I'm no longer going to work with it, I just completely check out and walk away and don't look back. What? You don't look back? You just completely check out? You don't even communicate? I emailed the guitarist back and I told her, I said, listen, bravo. You know, you know when it was time to walk away and that was time to walk away. You did everything that you were supposed to do. The bottom line and what led me to this podcast is communication. That happens every single day in our line of work. And why? There's only a couple of reasons. One, you got an ego the size of Texas. I don't care how good you are. You have to communicate with people and you have to be willing to work with people. You're not good enough to be able to do everything on your own. You need people. Another reason that this could happen is because you just don't know better. And then the third is you don't care. And either of those three reasons is not going to end well. But the second one, the one that you don't know better, you can change. You can change that. And this is what this podcast is all about, you know. Maybe there are things that you don't know. Maybe there are things that need to be discussed and brought out into the light. And you can do the same thing. If there's something that you feel needs to be brought out into the light and be brought up, discussed on this podcast for other people to hear, you can send me an email too. Reggie at beingonstage.com. Communication is number one in every business. I deal with it at my day job. I've dealt with it in my performance career. I'm dealing with it with this podcast. I have to communicate with you with more than just a podcast. That's why I send emails out. That's why I have a Facebook group, beingonstage.com slash group. That's why I'm on Instagram, so that I can connect with you. And I can communicate with you. And so that you can communicate with me. Communication is everything in everything you do. I think I'm going to coin that phrase. Communication is everything. It's number one in every business. You have to be able to communicate. So this is me calling out to you, like, drop the ego. I don't care if you don't know any better. And I, truthfully, I don't care if you don't care. You need to hear this. Nobody, not one performer, deserves radio silence. That is childish bullshit. My 13-year-old daughter does that to me when she's having a temper tantrum. And you guys know how teenagers can be. Like, one moment they're happy and they love you. You're everything in their world. And the next minute, you've, like, killed their dreams and crushed all their hopes. And they just want to go lay in their room and be alone on their cell phone. It's so dramatic. And when I really do something that upsets my 13-year-old daughter, she does that. She gives me the silence. She makes this, like, disappointed, pouty, upset, pissed-off face. And then she goes radio silent. I'm like, hey, hello, talk to me. Radio silent. Won't talk to me. Won't respond. That is what some performers do when they don't want to interact with people or when they're upset with something. And that's crap. And if that's you, if you've done that, if you've just gone radio silent, like, I can't talk to them right now. I can't talk to them right now. The only way that your career is actually going to progress is if you talk to them. You've got to talk it out. I keep saying this over and over and over. You've got to have these grown-up adult conversations. So put your big boy pants on and put your big girl pants on and go out there and have these conversations with people because it's going to be uncomfortable in that moment when you're having the conversation, when you're letting someone know, listen, we're really not a good fit. I'm kind of offended that this happened. This can't. It can't happen again. You can continue to work with people if you're able to have these conversations. You don't have to quit projects and give up on groups and give up on dreams and collaborations just because you get upset with something. Communication is an important characteristic of every journey, every business, every piece of work that you do. Even when you're on stage, you're communicating with your audience. Everything you do is communication as an artist. Your art is a communication of who you are. And you've got to think. You've got to think about this, you know, as sensitive as you may be when someone upsets you because, listen, artists are sensitive. I know it. You don't have to agree with me. You don't have to disagree with me. It's the facts. We're sensitive people. We get upset easily. We hold grudges. We seek revenge. We have to stop. And communication is the best way that we can stop. We have got to talk to each other. We've got to talk things out. I've had this happen in my personal career. I've told stories about it. I've told stories about the people that, instead of talking to me with the problems that they're having, and the struggles that they were having, they went behind my back and they got me fired. I had a group of performers that I had put together. And slowly, people stopped coming to rehearsal. I'd put the invitations out there. I'd remind them. They'd stop coming. Sometimes there were excuses and stuff, which we'll talk about commitment in another episode because that's going to be a long conversation. But some of them just checked out and wouldn't even respond and wouldn't show up and nothing. And it's like, you know, previously, I'll admit, I would have chased them. And it's like, you know, I would have chased them. If this has happened to you and you've chased them, I get it. You feel like you need to make it right. You feel like you need to be that person to put it all back together. And listen, after hearing this woman's story and after really thinking and digging deep into my past in the past couple of days, I'm going to tell you, you're not going to be chased if this happens to you. If you're the person that has a problem communicating, you're not going to be chased. A couple people may come after you, may try to work it out. But if you keep refusing to work with people, you're going to wind up alone. A solo performer can thrive with the support love people, but a solo performer cannot thrive if they have nobody to support them. And nobody's going to support you if you don't communicate. And if you're the person that has that issue with somebody, like maybe you have someone who's gone radio silent, listen, you need to send them one more message. And that message is going to say, you know what? Nobody deserves your silent treatment because you're upset. I no longer want to work with you. Our relationship is terminated. Have a nice day. You will find somebody to replace them. I don't, listen, I don't care if you're a trapeze artist. I don't care what you do and what your group act is. There are millions of people out there that are talented, that will replace them in a minute. And that goes the same thing. So if you're at, if you're in a group of people, or if you're invited to be in a group of people, you need to establish that trust and get that connection with your group rather quickly, because there's millions of people out there that would die to be in the group that you're in. And so, to be asked to perform like you're being asked to perform, communicate, ladies and gentlemen, communicate with each other, communicate with the people that support you and communicate with your audience and your fans. And if you want to communicate with me, you can email me again, Reggie at beingonstage.com. You can also hook up with me on Facebook and Instagram. Facebook is beingonstage.com slash group. That'll put you into our free Facebook group. And on Instagram, you can follow me at beingonstage. And you can also DM me on Instagram. I would really appreciate it. I really like that a lot. I love getting emails. I love hearing from people who listen to the podcast or follow me on social media. So hit me up. Keep on shining, y'all.
PodcastTranscript AI