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, Reggie Dawson, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back and thank you for tuning in. I took the last week off to celebrate my birthday with my family. We went camping in the Ocala National Forest. And for those of you who may not have ever experienced camping in the summer in Florida, don't. Short and sweet, don't make that mistake. It was hot. It was humid. There was mosquitoes out. There was almost no breeze because we're in the center of the state. And it was just, it was pretty miserable. And to have the family out there with the dogs and just limited access to air conditioning. We turned on the car for probably an hour at a time just to have some access to some air conditioning. I probably used more gas getting air conditioning than I did to get there. But, you know, when you take those trips where you're off grid and you're disconnected, and even when you're suffering and when you really have nothing to do but spend time with your family and think, that's exactly what you do, you know. In between the times of playing games and hanging out with the family, I did some thinking and I did some reflecting on the past and some of the things I've done and some of the things that I should have done and some of the things that I wish I would have done. And that's what you do, you know. You reminisce over the mistakes that you made. And it's unfortunate. I know that we shouldn't do that. I'll be the first to tell you. You shouldn't, you know, hang on to the mistakes. But I think it's also important to continue to learn from those mistakes so that you don't repeat them. Some of the mistakes that I made include foregoing opportunities that were presented to me because of travel, because of money. I mean, you look and you see artists that are literally living in a car, starving artists so that they can do what they love. And I didn't take some opportunities out of fear because I didn't want to live that life. I blame a lot of it on my mother. Not that she's a bad mother, but because I'm an only child and she's a single parent and I feel, you know, responsible. Don't want to neglect my mother. Some of the things I also think about is things that I did that was really weird and really out there and kind of strange. And it got me thinking, you know, that's really what makes things exciting on stage is the weird and the out there and the. Did you really just use stools as a drum set? And that is actually an interesting story. Before I get into that, some of you are probably thinking, who is this guy? What is he talking about? Where does he get off? Listen, my name is Reggie Dawson. I'm a talent coach. I'm an emcee. I'm a podcaster. And I believe that everyone should experience the thrill of being on stage. I coach performers to improve their presentation on stage. Some of the crazy things that I have done on stage to grab the audience's attention and some of the weird stuff that I've seen done on stage to grab the audience's attention is it creates memories. And you want to have one of those memorable performances that make people scratch their heads and go, how in the hell or why in the hell or what in the hell? You want them leaving with questions. You want them leaving with curiosities and creating those curiosities. That's that's that weird and crazy stuff you do on stage. And it doesn't have to be. Lighting yourself on fire like it doesn't have to be life threatening, although, you know, ratings have shown that that style of entertainment does go over very well. But you don't have to light yourself on fire to be thrilling on stage. Some of the things I've done on stage is just wacky and out there. I have used stools as a drum set. So me and a couple of friends, we decided we were going to do a comedy. It was kind of like a serious comedy routine as a tribute to someone who was really, really passionate about what they did. They had book shows for a couple of years for this local venue. They took a lot of crap from a lot of people. And you just knew this person like their heart was all in it. Everybody loved him. He's he's passed now, unfortunately, from heart problems. He was so passionate and so helpful to every everybody. We did like a tribute show. So we did like this comedy esque performance imitation of Basket Case by Green Day. And we made it into this whole routine of going to the psych ward and taking the crazy pills. And throughout this time, we were playing guitar. One of us was playing a guitar. One of us was singing and one of us was playing drums. Now, we were poor artists. We were poor performers. We didn't have a lot of extra money and we didn't get paid really for what we did. So we luckily had a guitar. It was one of those things where you find a guitar and you turn it into a prop. So we had a guitar. So that was fine. And drums, we couldn't get a hold of. And how do you fake drums on stage? So I got this bright idea. They had bar stools and a couple of different kinds of bar stools. So I took I sat in a chair and I turned one bar stool on its side, almost like a bass drum, and then I put three bar stools around me. And then I turned another bar stool upside down and put like a a plate, like a like a frisbee on one of the things, almost like a symbol. And that was our drum set. And I kid you not, it was probably the most fun I've had on stage. I felt like a child because you think about playing drums on chairs like I felt like a freaking child playing on my toy drum set. But you know what? It was amazing because think about those times when you're playing on your toy drums as a as a kid or playing on your toy guitar, your toy keyboard, or even a toy microphone, you know, when you're a child, you have it in your head. You're just rocking out. You're just doing your thing. And that's what makes it fun when you're a child. What makes it scary is when you step on stage in front of 100 people or 1000 people or more, and all of a sudden it's not just fun anymore. There's an expectation there. And I've said it before. Expectations are going to kill your dreams. You got to get rid of all the expectations. You got to just go out there and have fun. If we can put ourselves in the mindset of the child, us and just have fun and do our thing and shake our butt, you know, we're going to have fun on stage. And that's what's going to make it memorable. You got to do some wacky stuff. I turned stools into a drum set and we got so many compliments on this show. I got so many compliments for the drums, even though there was no drums. I was literally banging on a stool set on a set of stool set. I drum drum set stool set. I was banging on stools. But, you know, I made it into a show. I played those stools as if I was playing drums. In Green Day, in front of, you know, thousands of people, I got into it. I look like I was a drummer going to town on those damn stools. And that is what creates memories from the weird and abnormal. I've made props and signs of the cardboard and foam board. And those are the things that stick with people. I put my name in the lights. I drew a little pattern on a foam board. I drew my name. Actually, I took my name and I wrote it. On three pieces of foam board, R-E-G-G-I-E, two letters on each piece of foam board. I drew the letters and then I poked holes like a dotted pattern into the letters. And I stuck Christmas lights individually through these holes, plugged in all the strands, and my name was in lights. I think I told this story a couple of episodes back. The things that you can do on stage, the weird, the abnormal, you see these people turning ordinary. Ordinary objects into amazing pieces of performance art. Look at people that dance with something as abnormal as an umbrella. Like today, we see people dance with an umbrella and it's like, oh, yeah, they're dancing with an umbrella or that's really cool. But think back, you know, 10, 20 years ago, if you saw someone dancing and it may be longer. But if you saw someone dancing with an umbrella, you'd be like, what the hell are they doing dancing with an umbrella? Look at, you know, Mary Poppins, the movie. Mary Poppins, they're dancing with chimney sweepers. These things, the weird, the abnormal. Those are the things that are going to stick with your audience because those are the things that are going to stick with you. The time that I really had a real motorcycle brought on stage inside a small, tiny nightclub, the time that I made it rain money with my face on it. These little tiny things that you can do to turn a small venue and a small stage and a small show into a huge performance and an amazing production. It's not expensive. It's not hard, but it is going to create memories and it is going to create momentum and it's going to make you feel special. It's going to make the performance feel special for your audience, which is going to leave them with that curiosity, that craving for more. That's what you want to leave them with. You have to leave them with the curiosity of, OK, what comes next? Because if they don't have that, if they don't have that curiosity, they're not going to go find you. They're not going to go find you online. They're not going to go check out your website. They're not going to look you up on Instagram. They're not going to follow you on Twitter. They're not going to like you on Facebook. You've got to create memories to create curiosities. And doing small, weird, out there stuff can do it. I saw the movie The Greatest Showman. I know, I know, for someone as into performing as I am, I probably should have seen the movie when it first, first came out. But I didn't. I regret it. Time got away from me. Family stuff got away from me. And I was saving for this vacation I just went on. But anyways, I finally got to see The Greatest Showman. My girlfriend got it for me for my birthday. And one of the things I realized in watching that movie is, since the beginning of entertainment, the weird, the obscene, the abnormal, that is what has gotten attention. That is what gains the most traction and creates the most curiosity and the most memories for people in the audience. The weird, the out there. And again, you know, some things take it to the extreme. Like the movie The Greatest Showman, and I know it may not be historically accurate, and I gather that. I looked up the real history. It's not quite as poetic and superstar-esque as it seems, but it's still a very good movie, and I think it's a very good show that they put on. That being said, part of that weird stuff doesn't always have to be extreme. It can be using something weird as a prop. It can be dancing with an umbrella. It can be juggling lamps on a subway. It can be, you know, maybe you're juggling laptops, while you're texting, and you're able to create a whole tweet to the audience. Including technology in your act is crazy. I don't know. I may have just given some juggler an idea right there. But the weird, abnormal, and the stuff that people don't usually see, that is what needs to be out there. That is going to create your momentum forward into your career. If you're nervous, if you're afraid to do something that's a little weird, that's a little out there, that maybe isn't, that maybe isn't quite normal, I would love the opportunity to help you get past that. Send me an email, reggie at beingonstage.com. Let's work together. Let's get past that stop, that block that's keeping you from doing what it really is you want to do on stage. Let me help you get past that fear. Because you've got to get the weird, and the abnormal, and the off-center. That has got to be out there, because that is where the true success lies. That is where you're going to create curiosity, and curiosity is getting that piece of you out there, that piece that isn't quite right. Because really, none of us are quite right. That's what makes us artists. I want to thank you again for listening. I'm wrapping up here today, but before I do, please get into this Facebook group I have going on, the Being On Stage group on Facebook. I get in there once or twice a week, do a video, a couple of posts here and there. There's other performers in there, all sorts of performers, acrobats, podcasters, speakers, musicians, drag queens, performance artists, street performers, all sorts of different artists. So, come up in there. You can get there real easily, beingonstage.com slash group, G-R-O-U-P. There's a couple of questions that you've got to answer. It's just a formality, just so I can get to know you a little bit better. Also, head over to beingonstage.com, subscribe to the Rockstar Lounge, so you get even more to help you with your stage performance. When you do that, you'll also get a free copy of my book, Confidence on Stage, Navigating the Three Levels of Stage Fright. It's a pretty good book. It's a pretty good read. It's pretty short, but it's a pretty good read. I'm heading out, guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. Again, this is Being On Stage Podcast. I'm Reggie Dawson, and keep on shining.
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