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, this is the show for you. Hey, rock stars. Reggie Dawson, host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back. And a happy holiday, a merry Christmas, happy new year to everyone around the world if you celebrate. And if you don't, happy holidays or happy winter. Speaking of the holidays, you know, Christmas just happened, New Year's right around the corner. Everyone around the world, for the most part, celebrating, you know, the coming of a new year, a new birth, a new chance to make your move, to leave your mark, to do something new. And to do something new. And to change yourself. And I think that's, I mean, that's a pretty, that's a pretty momentous occasion. But my focal point today, I'm still kind of stuck on Christmas. And I've noticed that, you know, that a lot of people, you know, on December 26th, it's like, all right, pack it up. Christmas is over. Tear all the decorations down. Shut the lights off. Shut off the holiday music. It's done. It's over. It's kaput. Shut it down. And I think for me, it's a little depressing. You know? A lot of people get those post-Christmas blues or the, you know, post-holiday depression and everything. Sorry about that. Myself included. And it's, you know, we woke up on December 26th. I mean, we had a great Christmas. You know, everybody got everything that they needed. I got a lot of stuff that I needed for the business and to keep this podcast going. My wife and my mom really took care of me this Christmas. Our daughter got a lot of stuff that she can learn from and develop new hobbies and, you know, new skills and everything. Same with my wife. My mom, you know, all of us just had a fantastic Christmas. But on December 26th, you know, I have to go back to work, turn on the music, and, you know, we're flipping through the stations. No one's still playing holiday music. Not even, not even like walking in a winter wonderland or let it snow. Like, not even the, you know, just the weather-related ones or the winter-related ones, you know? And just, just nothing. And it really makes you just feel like, man, it is just, it's done, you know? It's all that work and all that preparation. And all that, you know, you decorated your tree. You put on, some people put on literally hundreds and hundreds of lights on their tree. I got a friend of mine that I think his record is like 3,500 lights on a single 10-foot Christmas tree. Anyways, you know, so you do all this preparation. You're decorating your house. You're decking the halls and you're harking the heralds and all this. You're putting up, you know, your nativity scenes or anything. You know, you're decorating for this holiday and you're preparing and you're cooking. These big fancy meals, all the families coming in. And in a flash, in an instant, you know, you go to bed Christmas night. You've had a great day with the family. Maybe you went to church. You had a great meal. You know, everyone had a fantastic time. You got all these new presents you get to play with. You wake up on December 26th and it's over. It's all done. You know, back to work, back to the grind. The music's off. The, you know, some people start undecorating their house. Like we were driving, I was driving to work on December 26th. And we saw people outside taking down their inflatables and taking down the lights and everything. And it's like, God, what is the rush, man? Can we just let it linger for a single minute? And, you know, I know I'm like four minutes in. And by now you're probably like, all right, I thought this was about performing. And it is. It is. I have a point, I promise. But sometimes a lot of times I like to relate performing and how we feel about our performance to other things. And for those of you just listening, bear with me for a minute. I will swing back around and loop it all together and put it in a nice little Christmas package for you with a bow on it. I promise. You know, all the preparations, all the hard work, it's done in an instant. You wake up the next day, it's back to work. Even at work, you know, we had a gingerbread building cube. We're going to call centers. We're in cubes. We had to build our cube into a gingerbread house. That was really fun. But then they're like, we want them down by December 31st. You know, taking down all the decorations, the wreaths are coming down. They took the tree down in the lobby. Like the next day, like the 27th or 28th or something. And today's Saturday, the 29th. So I'm like five days out from four days out from Christmas. And I don't know, it starts feeling really depressing. Everything that we've done to prepare, it's really disheartening and can really make. It's like, man, all that work and it's like done. And that's how a performance can feel, especially ones that you put a lot of preparation into, you know, you. You could be rehearsing for weeks or so, in some cases, months for this one performance. And maybe it's a group of performances. Maybe you you do like a little 10 day or 12 day or three month tour or whatever. But all the preparation and all the rehearsal that you do and all the hard work, you know, you're selecting an outfit. You're creating that atmosphere for your audience. Sometimes you've got to design the lights that go into it. There's music that goes into it, the emotion that goes into it. You know, you're you're putting yourself out there to your audience. In a way that is probably one of the most intimate ways you can do, you know, you're sharing your most inner self with your audience and then it's over after all that hard work and all that preparation, all the anticipation and in some cases anxiety, it's done as nervous and excited as you were, it's gone in an instant and all we're left with, just like Christmas, all we're left with is the pictures and the memories and that can be. It can be really, really disheartening and also it can make it a little difficult to keep moving forward. It can make it a little difficult over time when that happens over and over and over again. You got to think like you're putting a lot of yourself out there. You're putting yourself out there to the audience. And when that's done and when that's over, it's kind of a low because it's kind of like being on stage and performing and having that exchange of energy. That's a high. You know, you feel like you're on top of the world. The audience is. Right there with you. Everything is perfect and it feels amazing when you're off stage. You know, the next day you're back to normal life. You're going back to work. You're you know, you're going back to rehearsal. You're going back to just going over the same old, same old, just keeping the skills sharp until the next show. And you're just you're back to life. Me and my me and my wife, we used to when she was in Massachusetts and I was here and we travel back and forth. We used to have a thing we do when we were going back. You know, we would. We say back to life, back to reality. And I know that's a song from like a while back. God, please forgive me. I don't know who it's by. I don't even remember the words. All I remember is back to life, back to reality. That's what happens after Christmas. You know, we do all the decorating and buying the presents and getting ready for everything. And then on December 26th, it's back to life, back to reality. Same thing with performing. You know, you you put in all the time at rehearsal. You learn some new skills. For this one, you know, you're showing the audience something new. You go out there, you give everything on stage. As I as I say, you leave your legacy on that stage. You give one hundred and fifty percent. It's an amazing night. The audience goes crazy. You feel like you made some connections that night. And then the next day you got to go into work back to life, back to reality. Over time, it can become really, really difficult to keep putting in all that work because, you know, deep down subconsciously, you know that you're going to put in all this rehearsal and all this time and the next day you got to go back to work. You got to go back to your life and back to your reality. And yet I know, listen, we don't necessarily like our reality and that's OK. I don't necessarily like my reality, you know, after my little vacation, after my spending my anniversary with my wife's a 10 year anniversary on New Year's, by the way. But after all that, I have to go back to my life and back to my reality. And same thing after I perform. I perform back to life, back to reality after Christmas, back to life, back to reality. It can be hard to keep doing it over and over and over again, because maybe you're one of those people like me that you don't necessarily like the reality of getting up and going to your job the next day. But that's part of it. You have to keep doing that so that you can get rewarded later down the line. We all do. All of us. We have to keep putting in the work and keep going back and forth between stage and reality. We all do. So that we can build ourselves more on stage and so that we can keep growing and we can keep moving forward. Your reality right now, where you live, where you are in life right now, that is only temporary. You're going to change. You're going to grow. But it starts with the decision to do so. So, yeah, you know, on December 26th, Christmas is over. You know, we're packing up the tree. We're taking down the lights. We're undecking the halls. But you know what I did on December 26th? I listened to Christmas. I listened to Christmas music. And we turned the lights on on our tree. And we've left the lights on outside. And we even still have gifts under our tree and all of our decorations still up. You know why? I refuse to believe that I have to give up Christmas to go back to reality. And just the same thing with performing. You do not have to slow down and stop giving so much to performing just because you have a reality that you have to go back to. Keep going. Keep putting in the work. Right now is only temporary. The future is bright for you, my friends. bright for me it is bright for you it is bright for all of us that are willing to put in the work and keep pushing ourselves forward Merry Christmas everybody and a Happy New Year to you if you'd like more being on stage please head over to Facebook to the being on stage group you can also get there by going to beingonstage.com slash group g-r-o-u-p I cannot wait to see you in there the new year is going to be bright and amazing for all of us and I look forward to meeting you in it. Keep on shining.
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