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.
Speaker 2Hey Rockstars, this is Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Thanks for tuning in. Last episode I said something, and after I heard it, I thought I was a little bit of an ass. I said that you can hope for a good show, you can plan for a good show, you can rehearse for a good show, but don't go out there expecting to blow the roof off the place. Now when you take that comment just by itself without the whole other episode, it makes me sound like, well, a bit of a jerk, but expectations kill dreams. Expectations kill dreams. It's as simple as that. An expectation is a strong belief that something will happen. This definition is straight out of Google, guys. Like, you can type in expectation definition and you get the same thing. So it's a strong belief that something will happen. What happens when your expectations don't come true? The thing about sports, like maybe you are watching the Super Bowl and you expect your team to win, and you bet money on them. What happens when they don't win? You lose your money, you are shattered, you're maybe a little depressed. Other expectations that are closer to your heart, say the passion of performing your talent on stage, those types of things that are close to your heart, those are the things that expectations kill. When you put expectations on yourself, it kills your dreams. You're not going to be able to function with expectations. Hope is different. Hope is a desire. Hope removes the pressure and allows you to breathe. So let me review. Expectation is a belief. Hope is a desire. The minute you change your expectation to a hope, and you're no longer putting the pressure on yourself, you're no longer feeling like you have to be at a certain level or else. And that or else can be anything. It could be or you're not going to get paid, or you're not going to get booked again, or the audience isn't going to clap for you, or they're not going to come back. Or they're not going to subscribe. Anything. It doesn't matter what your or else is. If you don't hit that level, or else will happen. Why is that? Why do we have to put the pressure on ourselves to be at such a level? Can't we just create and plan and rehearse and go out there and just hope for the best? And know that we're well rehearsed and know that we know what we're doing and know that we have a solid plan. And know. And believe in our talent. But we don't have to believe that the whole place is going to go wild. Because if that doesn't happen, you're going to enter a place of disappointment and despair. And that can cause a downward spiral that is really hard to come back on. Expectations will kill your dreams. If you have an expectation for your show and it doesn't come true, you will probably. I mean, you're going to post about it on social media because that's what we do. We post about our problems on social media. You're going to. You're going to internalize that disappointment and that despair. And then you're going to start the doubting. And when you start doubting yourself, that's when the real trouble happens. Because when you. The minute. The minute you start doubting yourself, you're on your way out. Period. You're on your way out. Turn around immediately. Stop the self-doubt. Stop the self-pity. Turn your ass around and create something more. But all of this stemmed from having an expectation that you didn't meet. I've known performers that they've never performed before. They rehearsed for an hour or two. I helped them for another hour. You know, I helped them get dressed with their outfit and everything like that. And they expected the audience was going to go nuts and they were going to make tons of money. And they were going to get immediate bookings the next week because they were expecting to blow the roof off this joint. And you know what happened? They went out there and maybe five, ten people clapped out of 50. It wasn't a good show because the expectation. The expectation took over the need to rehearse, took over the need to have a plan, and took over the need to have that audience engagement. If you live your life on expectations, your dreams will die because you will stop focusing on the other little details. You'll focus so much on that expectation that it's impossible to make it come true. Back yourself up. Focus on hope. Focus on the desire to do well. Focus on rehearsing to do well. Focus on planning. Focus on planning to do well. Focus on creating something that's going to be amazing. Don't focus on the expectation. Don't focus on the need to be great. Focus on the need to get your stuff out there. Focus on the need to share your gifts. We as artists, and we are artists, just because our art doesn't sit on a wall or on a platform doesn't make it any less art. As artists, we don't need pressure. We don't need the pressure of having these expectations. We already have external expectations. We already have, you know, our manager expects this from us. I mean, depending what level you're at, you may have those external expectations. But the minute you have internal expectations, that's when all the pressure comes. There's so much pressure put on you, and stress and pressure as a performer will quickly make you want to stop. I've been there. I had so much expectation for myself that I wanted to quit. And I did quit. I put so much pressure on myself to be better than the next person and to be better than everyone else out there and to just, you know, I put such an expectation that I had to be the best and that I had to get the audience to cheer and I had to make a certain amount of money. And when I went to start performing again, when I started performing again, a couple months later, I approached it as I want to just have fun. I'm not in it for the money. I'm not in it for the fame. I'm not in it for the fans. I want to come out and do the open mic nights. I don't want to be paid. I want to be. I want to be as if I'm starting over. And the venue absolutely agreed. They said I'd be treated like every other person that does an open mic night. And that's what I did. I started over with hope, with hope that I would grow and with hope that I would become something more than I ever was before. And it happened because I removed the pressure. I removed the pressure that I put on myself. We cannot take that kind of pressure on ourselves constantly. We have to release the pressure. As artists. We can't take pressure. We need freedom and that hope, that desire to do well, that gives you the freedom, the freedom to make a mistake, the freedom to be human on stage, the freedom to be yourself, the freedom to be authentic, and the freedom to fully engage with your audience, even if you feel like a fool. Sometimes when you feel like a fool, that's when you make the best connections because everybody's a fool. Everybody makes mistakes. Everybody is human. And when you are free to be you on stage, the audience is going to love you because there's not enough of that going around. There's not enough of people having fun and being authentic on stage. Remove the pressure. Remove the expectation. Breathe in the hope. Breathe in the freedom. Be free to explore yourself. Be free to make mistakes and to have them. Be free to have errors and be free to forgive yourself for those mistakes and for those errors and have the freedom to move on. That's the biggest thing that you could do for yourself is hope for a good show and have the freedom to move on when it's not. Before I wrap up today, I want to ask if you haven't done so already, please join in the conversation on Facebook. We have a group, the Being On Stage group. I made it real easy for you to get there. You can go to beingonstage.com/group. We're happy to have you. I'm in there almost every day posting something or doing a video talking about random topics going a little deeper from the podcast. The other thing I want to ask you if you haven't done so already, please subscribe to the Rockstar Lounge. You can go to beingonstage.com and put in your name and your email and you'll be subscribed to get the tips and the tools that I provide to help you improve your performance on stage. Big announcement for episode 50 in celebration of episode 50. Once again, I'm dropping the biggest secret. You can subscribe to this podcast in order to make sure you get that episode downloaded. Thank you very much once again for tuning in. This was Reggie Dawson in the Being On Stage podcast. Keep on shining, Rockstar.
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