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 show. Welcome back, thanks for tuning in. I got something kind of brewing in my mind today, so I'm just kind of going to press the gas pedal and go on this episode. So before I do that, once again, Reggie Dawson here. I'm a talent coach, I'm a performance artist, and I love everything about being on stage. My mission in life is to help other entertainers improve their presentation and their confidence, and to show everyone on the face of the planet, that you can be on stage doing something spectacular. So diving right in, as I promised, it's brewing, you know, I was thinking a lot about stage fright, and I know that a lot of performers face fears at different points of their career. So it's not all stage fright, but stage fright's in there, and what I want to kind of go through is just three certain types of fears that we'll face as performers. And I dare say, I'm not going to go through all of them, but I'm going to go through three types of fears that we'll face as performers. And I dare say, I think I've faced them all, and I think a lot of us have faced all three of these fears at some point as we're going through our career. What hurts is if we hit a fear that actually holds us back. So I got a little bit of a story about that for you here in a minute. So getting started with the three types of fear, okay? So there's three types of fears that performers will face. Fear number one is the fear of attention, okay? That's the fear of people actually just looking at you and being on the spotlight. This is the commonly referred to stage fright quote. I'm using air quotes like you can actually see them. But this is commonly referred to as stage fright. You freeze up in front of people. You can't move. You get sweaty. You get clammy. You get nervous. Your heart's beating, all that stuff. That's the fear of attention. And then the next type of fear is what I call the fear of judgment. Dun, dun, dun. Alright, so the fear of judgment. This is that fear of what people think, how people are going to react. What are they going to think of me? Are they going to like me? Are they going to hate me? Now, a certain amount of this fear is healthy because it keeps you growing, keeps you moving forward, you know, thinking what people are going to like and evolving with your audience. But the other part of the fear is that debilitating, I'm afraid of what people are going to say, what they're going to think. I'm just not going to do this. You know, that type of fear. And I'm going to talk a little bit more about these types of people here in a minute because I want to reach out to these people and just like shake them. Like, wake up. You're not going to get judged. Just do your thing. The third type of fear, and I think that this is what impacts the most performers and myself, I was really, really, I think this kind of still gets to me once in a while and that is, wait for it. The fear of success. You know, the fear of what's going to happen if you are actually successful, if you do make it. Because let's be honest, you know, success does not come easy. And with success, in order to continue and to continue growing and getting better and continue your success, you know, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of us shy away from that hard work and the amount of risk and sacrifice and, you know, disappointment and everything. That can come with success is scary. It really is. So all things considered, a lot of people would have a fear of success. I mean, think about how much came with, you know, the success of Facebook. You know, how much more work did you have to put into it? Look at everything that spawned off of it. Like, and I mean, Facebook was spawning off of MySpace, so I technically should be saying MySpace. But seriously, you know, think about all the things that come with, you know, you have hard work, you have competition sprouting up. I mean, we're in performing, let's be honest. There's going to be drama, there's going to be risk-taking involved, and there's going to be the continual growth and need to learn new things because as your success comes, you're going to have to continue to grow to live up to your success. And that can be scary. And I think that a lot of us get stuck in this portion, in this fear. And I'm not trying to focus too much on this fear, but this one really impacted me. I mean, I'll tell you, I've been given so many different compliments. And, you know, looking back, and this is not, I'm not trying to brag, so please don't get the wrong idea. This is me kind of like sharing some remorse or regret or whatever, some fear, if you will. So, you know, there has been times when people have told me that I could thrive as a performer in a large city like Boston or L.A. I've been invited to different, different states, and I've been encouraged to go and enter, you know, different contests and pageantry, like formal contests and stuff like that. And I never did any of that. You know, I kept it pretty local. I performed at a state once, and it was kind of like a cute little, my girlfriend's from Massachusetts, so I performed in Massachusetts for her. Like, I worked out this deal with the bar she used to hang out at. But, you know, I performed a little bit out of my area, and a lot of things that I performed was, a lot of places I performed were very much local and very much in my hometown, and very little risk, you know? Like, I didn't really put myself out there a whole lot in the form of, you know, contests and bigger shows and, you know, bigger venues and, you know, tour even. I didn't even tour. So, you know, that fear of success, because I, I'll tell you, I mean, I worked hard to get what I got, and the idea of having to, you know, work harder and then plus you have the pressure of, you know, that normal lifestyle of you got to have a job, you got to go to college, all that stuff. So, you know, it's kind of like it was chalked up to be a pipe dream. So, and when you chalk it up to be a pipe dream and you convince yourself that it's a pipe dream, that's the fear of success getting inside you. That's the fear of success attacking, you know? So, and I've, I've kind of got stuck on the fear of success, so I guess I'm kind of working backwards now. The fear of judgment. So, these people that are afraid of judgment, they're the ones that are constantly thinking about what other people are thinking about them. And, you know, there's a quote, and forgive me, I don't know who said it, and it's probably someone really freaking famous or like some Chinese proverb or whatever, but it's something along the lines of like other people's opinions, none of me or none of my business. And that rings so true when it comes to being a performer. Other people's opinions and how they feel about you, quite frankly, not your business. And this does not pertain to the audience that you're entertaining. Like while you're on stage, you want to give everything to your audience. But if you're truly being yourself and you're not caring about their opinions about you and what you do, then you're going to find your audience. And I guess. I guess that's kind of where I'm going is when you release the fear of judgment and you say, you know what, I don't care what you think, I'm going to do what I do. Your audience may not be who you pictured it being, but you will find your audience, or I should say your audience will find you. So, that fear of judgment can be, it can be a really good thing because you want to keep growing. Okay, you want to think about, okay, where's my audience going? Where do I want to go with this? Where do I feel like going with this? You know, you want to keep growing. You want to keep learning new things, establishing new talents and, and kind of tying new things into your performing. But ultimately people's actual opinions about like, well, I didn't really like what he did there. Or, you know, she should have done this a little bit differently that none of your business, because here's the thing. They're still going to come to your show because they still like you. They may not like certain aspects of it and they may have an opinion, but quite frankly, that's not your concern. You're doing your thing. You're entertaining your audience. Let them have their opinions. There's also that other saying of like, uh, a negative review is terrible, but a good review is never good enough or something like that. And that's, that's really to say, like, you know, you can't pay attention to all the negative crap. You can't pay attention to all the negative crap. You got to focus on the positives of what you're doing and what you're enjoying, the fact that you're enjoying what you do. That's it. Focus on what you're doing. Enjoy doing it. That's how you, you know, release the fear of judgment, focus on what you do and enjoy yourself while you're doing it. Your audience will find you. I'm telling you, I promise you, your audience will find you lastly, the fear of attention. This is the commonly referred to stage, right? This is what a lot of people, when they've never been on stage in front of people before, this is what they face. These people, a lot of times freeze up. And it's kind of, it's kind of along the lines of a fear of judgment as well, because they could equally be afraid of what people are going to think of them. But the, the fear of people actually noticing them and paying attention to them, that's, that's a little bit different because to get past that, that's a confidence thing. And, and the, the best, I mean, the best way to boost your confidence truthfully is, is preparation. Preparation boosts confidence like nothing else, you know, know your stuff, have it memorized, know exactly what you're going to do, especially the first time you go on stage. Now, yes, a few years from now, you will be able to hop on stage as a drop of a hat and do your thing. Absolutely. But right now, you know, as you're developing yourself and you're really trying to get going and get past this fear, this, this freezing moment of, oh my God, to get past that, you know, prepare yourself, know every single second of what you're going to be performing. It may take you two, three, six months to get prepared for your first show, but the confidence that you were going to have is going to outweigh all that work. Okay. That confidence that you're going to have. And here's another thing. If you really want to boost your confidence, record yourself. Okay. As you go, as you progress, as you learn new things, and as you add onto your routine, whatever it is, you know, whatever you're going to be doing, juggling, dancing, singing, acrobatics, whatever it is you're going to be doing, add to it little by little as you go and record yourself, record different points of what you're doing and go back and watch it and don't watch it to pick it apart. Watch it from a perspective of entertainment and from enjoyment, you know, really try to enjoy what you're watching. Really try to enjoy your own performance. Okay. So prepare yourself and I promise your confidence will go through the roof. And listen, this may sound like a plug, but I'm going to do it anyways. Um, I actually wrote a book about confidence. It's a, it's called confidence on stage. If you would like a free copy, uh, you can head over to the website, beingonstage.com. And if you scroll down almost to the bottom, uh, you put in your name and your email and you'll be, uh, you'll get like two emails and one of them will be the link to download the book. So, uh, that is for you. You'll also be able to check out the book, star lounge. Uh, it's a newsletter I send out once in a while. Um, if you don't want to be subscribed, you can click unsubscribe, no hard feelings. Uh, but listen, I've appreciated chatting with you today. I hope you take something away from this episode. And if you want more being on stage, you can go to our group on Facebook, the being on stage group. Uh, I did make it easy for you. If you go to beingonstage.com slash group, uh, you'll be taken right in there. There's a couple of questions to help us get to know you, but everybody's allowed entry and it's automatic approval. So come on in. We'd love to have you as always rock stars. Keep on shining.
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