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 Rockstars, Reggie Dawson here, your host. Thanks for tuning in, and for those of you listening for a while, welcome back. If this is your first time listening, welcome, welcome. I have a question for you. Have you ever felt like you were doing the same performance over and over and over and over again? And hey, you may not be at the point where you're performing over and over and over again, but eventually you may get there. And you may know what I'm talking about. You may see a performer. In which it feels like the same performances, all the performances are the same. Every single time you go on stage. I felt that way. I felt that way quite a few times when I performed. I'd go on stage, and it felt like every single time I got on stage, I did the same movements, I did the same looks. Like, it just felt so similar. Even the outfits started to all look kind of, like, similar. Like a theme. Like I had a certain theme to my outfits and to my behaviors and to my movements on stage. And what the problem was, and I think what happens to a lot of us, is when we reach a certain point, we reach one of our goals that we had set for ourselves, and we get comfortable, and maybe we become a little complacent. It happens to everybody, not just performers. You reach a certain goal, or you get comfortable with the position that you're in and a role that you're playing, and you eventually become complacent or bored even. And, you know, there's nothing wrong with this. There's some things you can do to fix it. I'm going to actually go over four techniques that I've used to fix my complacency when it's happened to me, and what I still use today, because sometimes I still feel like I'm living the same day over and over and over and over and over again. Before I do that, a little identification here. Again, my name is Reggie Dawson. I am a stage performance coach, emcee, performance artist. I love everything about being on stage. I believe everyone on the face of the planet deserves to be applauded. My goal in life is to help performers improve their stage performance, have that confidence to go out there, and ultimately turn your audience into your fans. If you want more information on how you can turn your audience into fans, you can go to beingonstage.com slash group. Join our free Facebook group. I'm in there every single Wednesday talking about some stuff that can help move you forward in your career, things to keep you going and keep you pushing forward. Even when sometimes, you know, maybe it seems like there's no. Speaking of nowhere to go, that's where complacency comes in. You know, sometimes you feel like, what next? And we've all been there. So, a couple of things you can do. First and foremost, a lot of times this happens when you've reached a goal or you've had certain success that you. Maybe you planned for, you worked a long time for, and you were just kind of like right on that success. And now it's, you know, it's kind of worn off a little bit. So, naturally, what really needs to get you going is. You have to find something else to work for. You have to set yourself a new goal. It can be anything. It can be to enter a certain competition. It can be to have a certain number of bookings, to travel a certain distance. Maybe you want to audition for a certain show. I know a lot of people are into, like, the circus acts and acrobatics and everything. There are tons of shows that you could audition for. Maybe you want to go on a little tour. There's all sorts of goals that you can set for yourself. You can also. Learn something new. And I'm going to get more into learning something new when I get further into these tips. But you could also take on the goal of learning a new skill or learning a new talent or learning something new that you can apply towards your career. I set myself a goal to learn how to rebuild my website. And I'm actually in the middle of rebuilding my website right now, which. Little announcement. I'm relaunching my website in about a month or so when I get finished rebuilding it. But, yeah. So, sometimes you've got to learn something new. And set yourself a new goal. And that's what helps keep you moving forward. Another thing I've done in the past is a lot of times I feel like when I've reached a certain level or there's nowhere to go or, like, maybe I feel like I'm at the top of my game. Like, I'm absolutely the best I can possibly be. It sounds really terrible to say now years later. But when I felt like I was truly at my best in the moment, I felt like I had nowhere to go. I had reached my ceiling. And it sounds so. It sounds so egotistical to say that I was absolutely the best that I could be because it was not the case. So, what I did was I went back and I kind of focused more on the process and more on my creative process of building the performance and the certain aspects that go into it, the outfits, and kind of trying to tweak little things. And I guess in a way, I want to call it perfected. Now, I don't believe in perfection when it comes to performing. Performing is an art and perfection cannot exist in art. But I would find, too. I would find that I was doing little things about my process and my movements, my outfits, how I carried myself, how I looked. And that kind of helped me reinvigorate. That, like, reinvigorated me a little bit and pushed me to a whole other level. I would also focus more on trying to expand a little bit. Maybe send a couple emails to some places that are a little further off. Focusing more on the process and focusing more on building up my talent and building up my following a little bit. Yeah. Yeah. Not all lumped in together, but it's more just fine-tuning, you know, fine-tuning yourself when you feel like you've reached the absolute furthest you can go. I was actually into our Being On Stage group earlier, and I shared the Motivation Monday video, There's No Boundaries, by Adam Lambert. And it truly, you have no boundaries. So you've never actually reached your ceiling. It may be a mindset that you're in at the time, and that's a form of complacency is believing that you've reached that ceiling. And it's not the case. You absolutely have no boundaries to yourself or to your talent or to what you can give on stage. It's all in your head. So sometimes focusing on that process and kind of fine-tuning things can help you then turn, go back to the first one, set a new goal or find something new to work for. Another thing that I found really, really helpful when I was feeling just kind of bored with what I was doing on stage, I still loved being on stage. I loved performing. But I felt bored sometimes. Like, I felt like I literally was doing the same thing over and over. And I'm not the only one, guys. Like, I'm not the only one. I knew an entertainer. She was kind of a burlesque entertainer. And she would go out there, and it would be the same thing over and over and over again. A little shake it to the left, a little shake it to the right. Then you start taking the clothes off. It's a burlesque number, so, you know, there is a certain amount of strip to it. And it began to even look exactly the same. Like, the same movements, the same hairstyle. The outfits would be so similar. And they would all come off in the same manner. And it was always the same dance that was, you know, when the clothes would come off and everything. When she realized that she was getting complacent, I think she took a little bit of time watching some YouTube videos and learning a lot of new skills. She came out and had, like, this sparks flying where she took, like, a grinder and a metal plate and made sparks fly. You know, it's something new. Adding that new element to your shows can just add a little more excitement, a little more pop, a little more spark. Remember the word spark, because I'm going to wrap this all up at the end here. Remember the word spark. So adding that new element can give you more of that spark. And no pun intended, because she literally made sparks fly. But you need that for your audience. You need to have that wow. And sometimes adding that new element in there helps give you a wow. And also it's exciting for you. Like, you're exposing something new. You're showing something new. You're adding something. I mean, maybe you don't really do. You don't really do a lot of fancy outfits. Maybe that's an element you want to add. You can make an outfit super, super cheap, by the way. So YouTube and E6000. But, yeah, so add a new element. Some examples of adding a new element. Okay, so maybe you juggle. Maybe you want to try spinning plates. Juggler spinning plates, you know, or juggle on it. Learn how to ride a unicycle. Add that kind of new element. Maybe add more of what you're juggling. Add a partner. Add fire. If you're a singer, you know, add a little dancing. Or add juggling. If you're a comedian, try doing some funny songs and expanding into more of a musical realm. If you're a dancer, try doing some more acrobatic movements or a new style of dance that you've always wanted to try. Adding a new element does more than just excite you. It also excites your audience. Because when you've become complacent, your audience has become complacent with you. And they're just a hop, skip, and a jump away from not coming back to a show. And that's what you don't want. You don't want to end up in a place where you're like, you don't want to end up losing your audience because you've become complacent. So add a new element into what you're doing. Experiment. Share yourself in a new way. Whatever it takes to get you more excited about being on stage, do it. Lastly, and probably the last resort, sometimes you're going to become to a point where you are, I can't say burnt out, but I read a new term today called rust out. And what it means is you're just not not doing enough for so long that you're just getting by. And when you reach that point to where you're literally doing the bare minimum just to keep yourself on stage, just to get that little tiny bit of rush, it's okay to take a break. Maybe not like a long, I'm not talking like a year, I'm talking maybe, you know, six weeks, two months, whatever. But sometimes you're going to come to a point where you need to take a break. And you can call it whatever you want. You can call it a recharge. You can call it a reinvention. But that break from performing and that break from the stage is going to give you a new appreciation for what you have. And it's going to give you a chance to get excited about it again. Absence makes the heart grow fonder type stuff. And I've done this, you know, I've actually taken a break a couple of times. The longest break I took was six months. In that six months, I spent time with my family. I spent time reflecting on some of the things that I had done. I spent time reflecting on some. I spent time thinking about things that I didn't do that I really wanted to. And then the wheels started just turning and the ideas started to come. And so I started writing down the ideas. I started formulating these plans. I started rehearsing again. And even though I had no shows, I had no intention of going back anytime soon. I was still to the point of becoming excited again about performing. And in taking that break, I developed a new appreciation for my talent, for my own talent. Because you have to appreciate your own talent. But I also developed an appreciation for my audience and appreciation for the art and every other artist that has come before me and after me. Once you've taken that break and decided whether you're just recharging or whether you're reinventing, when it's really time for you to come back to the stage, you got to do it the right way. You got to promote it. You got to, you really got to put work into it. Come out there with a nice outfit. Come out there with something new, something fresh with that new skill that you've learned. And really put something together because I promise you're going to kill it when you come back from this break. If you get to the point of having to take a break, you're going to kill it. That complacency is going to go completely away and you're going to be right back where you want it to be. And hopefully you have a new goal that you're working towards. You put all these things together and you are going to be unstoppable. Now that brings me back to the word spark. So this process, this little bit of podcast process that I went through for you, this is what I'd call the spark theory. So every performance you do has to have a spark in order for it to be successful. That spark is what excites the audience and that spark is also what excites you. When that spark starts to fade away, that's when you start to become complacent. And when you become complacent, that's when it's time to set a new goal, focus on the process, add a new element. That's adding the spark back into your show. That is adding the excitement. That is adding the excitement back into your show. If you're at that point right now and you need help kind of recharging, reinventing, or just coming up with something new and something fresh, I want to help you. Reach out to me, reggie at beingonstage.com. Shoot me an email. Let's work together and let's get that spark back in your show so we can turn your audience into your fans and really, really build your career. Thanks again for tuning in, guys. My name is Reggie Dawson, host of the Being On Stage podcast. You're a rock star and keep on shining. Thank you.
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