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, Reggie Dawson here, host of the Being On Stage podcast. Thanks for tuning in, welcome back. So how does one become famous? I think it's a question that everybody has had at one point or another. And you may not want to admit it, because that's just not your thing. But I think it's healthy to admit that at some point you may have wondered, How do I become famous by doing this? Or, you know, can I become famous by doing this? You know, sometimes it's not about fame, it's about success, and it's about dreams and aspirations. And it may not be, how do I become famous? It could be, how do I perform with Cirque du Soleil? How do I perform, you know, on the Vans Warped Tour? How do I perform, how do I get a gig at, I don't know, Grand Ole Opry, or House of Blues, or, you know, whatever. Whatever it is that's like a big, ultra dream for you. It's, how do I do that? How do I become famous? Or, how do I become successful? You know, before we get in there and dissect how you do this, and how you do that, and how you're going to build your fan base and become the ultra famous mega superstar that every single person and performer deserves to be, my name is Reggie Dawson. Again, I'm a talent coach. I'm also an emcee and an entertainer. I love everything about being on stage, not just the podcast, but actually performing on stage. The energy, just the feeling, and the connection with the audience. And man, I just, honestly, I love the people. And that's what you'll hear me preach. That's what it's all about, is, you know, the people that you meet, being a performer, and the people in the audience, and the people that come out and support you, and connect with you, it's pretty, I don't know, it's pretty neat. And to me, it's all about the people connecting to your audience, and building that relationship with them over time. Not just, you know, and I'm not talking like you have to know every member of your audience, and, you know, how their kids are, and how many dogs they have. I'm saying, in general, knowing your audience and connecting with them is, it's a really, it's a really great feeling. And that, to me, is what performing is all about, sharing your talent, connecting with other people. So how do you become famous while sharing your talent and connecting with other people? Well, that's an interesting question. And it's a question that I've heard a couple of times, and it's not always posed in the same way. It's not. It's not always, Reg, how do I become famous? It could be, you know, how do I make a lot of money doing this? How do I get a lot of bookings? How do I go on a major tour? And I think the first step in any dream is realizing that it's not going to happen overnight. And realizing that there's a certain part of yourself, and a certain amount of work that has to go into it. In order to see any type of return in the form of audience connection, fame, followers, fans, however you want to, whatever you want to call it. In order to see any type of return on that, it's going to take a fair amount of work. And I think that realization is what, one, keeps a lot of people from getting on stage and going after their dreams. And two, I think it also scares a lot of people because it's like, and I've been there. This is exactly. I swear to God, this is something that I said exactly to my wife. I said, I don't want to take that risk of doing that because I may not be successful at it. The definition of success involves risk. Like, you cannot get to success without risk. And that, you know, performing is no different. You're going to have to take risks, you know. I knew a performer that would call out of work. On a regular basis to take a gig here and there. And when I say regular basis, I mean like once or twice a month. Like a regular basis. Eventually lost the job. But in losing that job because, you know, he never turned down a gig. He always would put the gig first. It was a huge risk. You know, he risked losing his job. He risked losing the ability to support his family. And I am in no way. Well, he didn't have a family. I should say, you know, feed his dog. I'm in no way saying that. Every single person needs to take this same risk. Because your situation is not his situation. It's not my situation. We all have our own situations to think about. Our own lives. But for him, you know, he took that risk. He took big risk. Lost his job. Almost lost, like, lost his house. I think him and his dog were living in his car. And, I mean, he lost everything. But in doing that, he was still able to maintain accepting every gig. And now he's on, like, a. Like a small festival tour in the Midwest somewhere. But that's what I'm saying. Is you cannot find success without taking a certain amount of risk. And it's something that took me years to realize. And I want to say, there's still some risk that really just scares the bejesus out of me. I mean, like, especially the risk that involves a lot of money. I've always had an issue with spending money to get someone. I've always felt like my art should speak for itself. And on some levels, you're performing and your art should speak for itself. But on other levels, there's going to be times when you have a great opportunity. And it's going to cost you financially more than you're going to gain financially. And I think in that regard, you have to look at it as a different. You can't look at it as financials. And a lot of us, we get hung up on how we're going to make the money. How are we going to pay the bills? That's something else that prevents us from going forward with our dream and becoming successful is that money factor, that finance factor. And I can't say that you need to remove the finance factor from the thought process when talking about your performing and your dreams. But in a way, you can't focus on the finances. You can't always focus on the money that you're putting into it versus what you're getting out of it. Sometimes you have to look at an opportunity as. an opportunity for something down the road that you're going to get a return on later. And it may not be a financial return because. And it's a very business-minded way to look at things. I admit that. We're talking about investing in something for ourselves versus getting a return on that investment. And sometimes you're not going to get a financial return. Sometimes you're not going to make that money back. Think about the parents. We'll start way young, okay? You know what? As a matter of fact, I wanted to talk about this story. And, you know, last week, this gymnast, Caitlin Ohashi, she went viral because, you know, she got a perfect 10 in her gymnastics floor routine. I mean, I watched the video probably three or four times. It is absolutely phenomenal. Some of the things she does is just ridiculous. I saw her on Good Morning America. She mentioned that there was one of her passes that she did, she actually had to resubmit it a couple of times because it. It wasn't even in the book. Like, they had to resubmit it and reassign it some points because it didn't exist, basically. And I find it funny because she got. She went so, so virally famous so, so fast. And to us, you know, to everyone else, it's like an overnight success. But first of all, backing up gymnasts, definitely not an overnight success. So parents start these kids really, really young. And I'm not. There's no harm in starting kids off doing something they love. They love at a young age. So her, you know, let's take her for example. Her parents started her off when she was three years old in gymnastics. I don't know if you've ever put a child into gymnastics. It ain't cheap. Okay? So that's an investment right there. You know, we're talking like $100 a week probably for gymnastics lessons. And we're talking. So $100 a week, that's $5,200 a year times. That probably only lasted four or five years. So by the time she was 10 years old, her parents probably. Probably already invested almost $10,000 to $20,000. I can't speak exact figures, so you're getting a broad range. We'll say $10,000 to $15,000, maybe even up to $20,000 on gymnastics lessons. By the time she was 10. So when this girl was 12, she also competed on like the pre-Olympic, like the national team. She was part of the national team. There's 12 to 14 in that age range. And so at that point, we're talking. She's probably got almost $50,000 invested in her just in the coaches that she's worked with and the facilities that she had gotten to use. You're talking pre-Olympians here, okay? So that's a hefty investment. So now we're up to like $50,000 that her parents has invested, okay? So then on top of all that, you know, she's had a lot of medical issues. I don't know if anyone. If you guys saw any of her videos for her interviews, but she had a lot of medical issues that she's had to fight through. She lost. Like she lost the heart in it for a little while. She struggled with having fun aspect of it. She actually mentioned. mentioned in one of her interviews that she didn't really want to be great like she was before because when she was great she didn't have fun and I want I'll tell you watching this video she's definitely had a blast so anyways so now she's 21 so now we're talking 3 to 14 probably 50 to 50 grand plus invested in her I don't know what happened in high school I don't know what happened there but in college she's at UCLA so that's like 50 grand a semester almost I'm sure so let's say in total her gymnastics career probably has about a hundred thousand dollars invested in it and she went viral for a two-minute video and got a perfect 10 so she invested and her parents invested a hundred thousand dollars for a two-minute viral video and a couple of interviews on ABC NBC good morning America today I don't know a couple of interviews and I mean she's still floating around on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter a little bit here and there but it's starting to fade away you know something else is going to come and and take the spotlight away so a hundred thousand dollars and she's famous for a week okay and I'm not saying listen it does not mean that you need to go out and invest a hundred thousand dollars for every week that you want to be famous but when we talk about fame fame is not something that just happens fame is not something that is free fame is not something that you can just wake up and post a video and you're famous and yeah yeah okay we're insta famous but I got news for you those viral there's a viral video posted every 30 seconds okay viral videos mean nothing anymore I used to a few years back you know when YouTube was still gaining a lot of ground and especially when Instagram first started and Facebook was you know starting to become whatever monstrosity it is today uh their viral videos were you know something special and even back like way back talking 90s you had America's funniest home videos uh those were your viral videos of the 90s so in the past when the past 10 years or so even more you know viral videos have become less and less and less of a rarity everybody has a viral video out I'm sure I have a viral video on YouTube so everyone's got a viral video out there somewhere it takes more than that to be famous there's no such thing as really being insta famous okay and even if they're is it may seem like insta fame but the work that went in behind that behind the scenes is incredible and almost every single person that you follow on Instagram that you look up to especially let's any perform pick any performer that you follow on Instagram that you look up to Instagram Facebook Twitter whatever pick anyone that you follow that you look up to and look into their past look what they've gone through to get to these viral video videos and these 15,000 100,000 whatever followers that they have now that they're famous for what they do I follow a guy on Instagram he's got about 14,000 followers Dan Mangus or something he does soccer ball balancing and stunts and everything it's it's really cool the stuff that he can do but just just looking at what he can do I can tell you for a fact he's not insta famous I mean he can balance a ball on his head and like put like uh throw it up in the air and catch it on his head and the back of his neck and do all sorts of stunts and tricks and everything that did not happen overnight he's been working at that since he was a kid I can tell you that I've never talked to the man never had a conversation with and I've never even messaged him but I can tell you beyond the shadow of a doubt he's been training with those stunts since he was a kid you know when you walk into something and your your immediate question is how do I become famous how do I become you know how do I make a lot of money with this how do I become the best how do I perform with this person perform with that person be in this group or that group the answer is hard freaking work and a lot of it it's not going to happen over and listen I'm not trying to bust anybody's bubble here but if this is a bubble that you have it it does need to be popped because you have to realize that there is going to be work that's going to go into your dreams and if you haven't realized that start making that realization that you're not going to be you're going to have to work for it fame does not come easy it does not come cheap and it does not come fast it takes a long time it takes a lot of investment in yourself and it takes a lot a lot of hard work I'm not trying to scare you off I'm trying to prepare you because you can do it you can put in the hard work you can make the time I spoke in an episode before about making something a priority and making it something that you have to do you have to two episodes back making it something you have to do if you approach your dream as something you have to do and you make that a priority and you take those risks and you make those investments you will see return in the form of success it may not be famous to the level of Beyonce famous but you will see success in what you do so go out there have fun connect with your audience and then keep doing it over and over and over again build your talent up build your confidence up build your brand up and your persona and then go out there and explode on stage and then do it over and over and over again a thousand times and then maybe you will scratch the surface of being famous if you want more being on stage if you want to connect with me I'm on Instagram and Twitter at being on stage send me a message let's connect you can also join the free Facebook group the being on stage group you can get there easily by going to being on stage.com slash group I look forward to connecting with you man this was a long one well let's close it out keep on shining
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