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, rock stars. Reggie Dawson, your host. Welcome back to the Being On Stage podcast. I gotta tell you, I am incredibly, incredibly grateful to be sitting here recording episode 99. I didn't actually think I'd make it this far, to be honest with you. I'm usually the type of person that gives up when I don't see a certain success or when I don't see my dreams start to come true within a certain amount of time. And that's happened, you know. But I found that the trick is. Every once in a while, you get something that just makes you feel so good about what you've been doing, and then you're so grateful for where you are. And so let me just give you a little idea of where I'm going with this. So this happened when I was performing as well. But this just is now happening to me. I'm going to share what's going on right now in my life. So this podcast, episode 99, it's been going for over a year. I started it in December of 2017. I uploaded the first three episodes, and boom, we were off. Since then, you know, I've been fairly consistent. I haven't gone more than. All right, well, last year, I think I went upwards of about 10 days between podcasts. But I definitely did at least four every single month consistently, you know. And I had a little bit of expectation on myself. And listen, in no way is this meant to tear down my listeners. But I didn't reach the. The point at which I'd hoped to reach. I thought by, you know, episode. Going on episode 100, I'd have thousands of listeners downloading every single episode. You know, emails pouring in and people begging me to, you know, come speak for them or come, you know, come coach them and things like that. And I came to a realization a few months back that, you know, this is not going to be the case. And my guy that I listen to, I listen to podcasts, too, to keep me motivated and keep me going. And I wanted to. Guys I listen to, you know, he says that, you know, you're willing to give like 40 years to the man, to the corporate, but you're not even willing to give your dream five years. And he says, you know, five years is like the minimum before you're even going to see any type of result. And I thought, you know, I thought I was going to be the exception. And I'm going somewhere. Listen, this podcast is about performing. Okay. And I'm going to get there. What I do is I tell you some story and then I turn it into how it relates to performing. That's how we roll at being on stage. So go with me here. I'm not some crazy guy. There's a point. So, you know, I was expecting all this stuff pouring in, pouring in, in a little over a year and, you know, 100 episodes. And that's just not the case. And I had to accept that. I accepted this, you know, back at like episode 50 because I thought by episode 50 I would have at least booked one client, you know. And I haven't. I'll be honest with you. I haven't booked a client. I receive an email here and there, someone thanking me. And, you know, Instagram, people telling me how great my content is. Or how they like the podcast, things like that. But I haven't had anyone hire me. I haven't really gone to speak anywhere. But I still keep putting out what I'm putting out. Why? Because I love it. I love getting to talk about performing. I love getting to share this with people. And I do once in a while get that email that says, hey, Reg, you know, thank you so much. And I just got one recently. It said, thank you. And because of you, I'm going to get on stage for the first time. And that right there, that's why I do this. You know, for people that, you know, maybe they're afraid to step on stage for the first time. Maybe they're afraid to to put themselves out there. Maybe they don't think they have a talent to put on stage. I built this podcast to tell you and to tell everybody that that is not true. Everyone deserves to be on stage. Everybody has a talent that they can put on stage. Everybody has the capability of being amazing. Why isn't everyone amazing? Why aren't we just pouring out tons and tons? Of talented people? We are. Look on YouTube. Look on Instagram. Look on America's Got Talent. Look at all these TV shows and all these. You can go on YouTube and literally type in performance and get hundreds of thousands of results of talented performers putting themselves out there. Every single person can do this. And that's what I built this podcast for. So I find myself getting down on myself sometimes. And I think this happens to performers. As a matter of fact, I know it happens because. When I was performing, the same thing would happen. You know, I would get down on myself and I'd have a show where 10 people would show up. I worked for tips most of the time. I'd walk out with maybe five bucks in tips. And that's it. That's my night. Like, I'd go on. I'd do two numbers. And in my genre, two numbers generally would cost anywhere from $100 to $200. So I would go on, do two numbers, and I'd walk out with five bucks. $5. On something that I. I would charge about 100 bucks for five bucks because there's no one in the audience. There were nights when there was literally no one in the audience. I remember one night the only people that showed up were the two people that I brought with me, the bartender, the door girl and the owner. That was it. That was the only people in the bar. But it was a great night. I still performed. I still went on. I still did it. But in times like that, times like that, when you get down on yourself because there's no one out to. The shows, you know, there's no one buying your tickets. There's no one following you. There's no one messaging you. When you start to feel down on yourself, you got to take a look back. OK, and this I have to do this, too. Even today, I had to do when I was performing. When I was performing, what I would do is I'd watch like old videos. I'd go look at old pictures of, you know, the outfits I used to wear. Some like looked like I, you know, stole my grandmother's crafting set and made an outfit. You know, I'd look at old pictures of the. The makeup that I would do, my stage makeup was terrible. Oh, it was awful. I used like the dollar eyeliner and stuff like that and like no highlighting or anything or nothing. And listen, if you don't wear makeup on stage, I get it. It's not for everybody. It's really great when you're in a place where there's lights, you know, like spotlights and stage lights. It helps. But if that's not your thing, I get it. I had to. But it was terrible. There was a time when I didn't wear any and I just looked like a white ghost on stage. And, you know, when I look back at the nights when there was no one there, the nights when I literally begged people or I had to bring my mom so that I would feel better about being on stage. I knew at least one person in the audience loved me, you know, and my mom came to a lot of my shows, even in the club, like she'd be there 11 p.m. Showtime sitting over in the corner watching my show is great. But I always have to look back because it makes me feel so great. I'm so grateful for where I am. And that's where I'm going with this, you know, because right now where I'm at with this podcast, you know, I look at the downloads and I look at the listeners and I look at the likes on Facebook and the follows on Instagram. And I look at the people in the in the being on stage group and it's like, man, it's just not where I thought it was going to be. And I think that a lot of us get like that. You know, you probably you get you probably get like that. You get to the point where it's like, man, why am I not where I thought I was going to be? I thought I was going to be getting booked by, you know, tons of different bars as a matter. In fact, I had this conversation with somebody, you know, they said that, you know, I would have hoped that I'd be getting booked by at least three bars a week. Now, you know, I have three solid bookings every week by now. It's just not happening. And I wanted I wanted to shake him. I didn't, but I wanted to. It was through a message on Facebook. So you can't shake. They should have like a shake button. Like when someone says something like post something or or like messages you something that just like like either a slap across the face or a shake. You know, that that's a button that Facebook should have is like a like a smack or a shake, you know, when someone says something down on themselves. But yeah, so we think, why aren't we getting all these bookings? Why aren't we performing for, you know, this club or that club? Or why aren't we getting, you know, why haven't we passed a thousand subscribers? Why can't I get more than 300 followers on Instagram or Twitter? Or why aren't more people? People joining my group, you know, things like that. We often think like that, but we have to remember to be grateful for where we are, because I encourage you. Listen, when I go back and I look at my podcast statistics from when I first started out, I'll tell you, month over month, it was like 100, 200, maybe. And now it's, you know, triple and quadruple that, you know, I'm pushing a thousand this month and it's an incredible feeling to look back. And I can see where I've come. And listen, I know I'm sharing podcast statistics and I'm, listen, I am not out to make anybody jealous because a thousand downloads for a podcast is nothing compared to some of the stuff that I've seen. Some of the people share in the groups that I'm on on Facebook for the, for like podcasters and stuff that I'm talking like tens of thousands of downloads a month and like per episode and things like that. So I'm not out to make anybody jealous. I'm, I'm like low man on the totem pole. This would be my first month. even reaching it out, maybe hitting it out thousand so like not making people jealous this is not the ego talking I promise but I'm still grateful for where I am at and you've got to be grateful for where you are too because listen maybe you're only performing once every couple of months but do you remember when you were just rehearsing and you had no performing do you remember when you were afraid to even get on stage because you didn't know what people would think about you or when you look at your Instagram or your Facebook and you have 200 followers or you know 50 likes do you remember when you had 10 and they were all your friends and family like do you remember when the first person followed you or liked you that you didn't know who they were I do I remember the very first person that joined my group that I didn't know them I remember the very first person that messaged me on Instagram that I didn't know them the first email I didn't know like when these things happen to you and you get these likes and these follows and listen your likes and follows your follows are going to go up and down there's a lot of people on Instagram and Twitter that use these formulas to get followers and so they'll find something that you post and they'll like it and they'll comment on it and then they'll follow you and then a day later they unfollow you and it's their way of trying to get you to follow them I try not to fall for it unless they're a really good performer that I I would enjoy following so be careful with who you follow back but also you can't you can't get distressed when your followers go down because that's just the fakes eliminating themselves so really every time your followers shrink a little bit just be thankful that one of your fakes are gone and the only people that are following you are people that are genuinely interested in your content and that's the best followers to have that's you know that's the people following me on Instagram they enjoy my content how do I know because I see my followers on Instagram and I know my followers liking and commenting on my content and that's the best that's the best kind of following you can have do I want more hell yes you should too but I see the track that I've been on I see the progress that I've made and you should see this too when you look at your your social media when you look at your videos and when you look at your career path as a performer you got to take a look at the progress that you've made and really truly be grateful for where you're at because if you place a lot of attention on your content you're not going to get a lot of followers expectations on yourself and I've said this before and I maybe it's time to do another expectation podcast but expectations on your career will kill it expectations kill your dreams hundred percent hands down expectations will kill you you cannot have an expectation to reach a certain point you can hope for it you can strive for it you can work for it you can push yourself for it but you cannot expect it at all because the most important thing is that you're not going to Because the minute you apply expectations to yourself, you're going to be disappointed. It's inevitable at that point. Expectations will always disappoint you. Hope for the best. Work for the best. Be grateful for what you have. But don't expect it. And that's, listen, it is a tough realization to have. Especially, listen, performers, we are some of the most confident people out there. And when I say confident, I mean stubborn. I'll own it. Listen, I'm stubborn. Someone comes to me and tells me I need to do a certain thing, not listen in the first couple of times until I got to realize that I need it. And I get it. But having that realization that we just got to be grateful for our journey, it's a tough thing. It's tough because you want to have those expectations. You want that dream. You want that big following. You want that, you know, the huge success and the fame and all that. But it's going to take a long time to get it. So don't expect it to come easy and don't expect it to even come. Enjoy the ride. Be grateful that you even get to go on the ride and soak in every opportunity, you know. Thanks for listening to me ramble on everything. Listen, next episode, episode 100, we're going to talk about some changes. It's kind of like a reintroduction. So if this is your first time listening and you want to really get an idea of what this podcast is going for, check out episode 100. You can do that by clicking subscribe anywhere you listen to podcasts. And. And if you like me, if you really like me, you can go to iTunes, leave a five star rating and a review. I would appreciate it. Helps other people find the show. Thanks again. Appreciate everyone. Listen, I'm grateful for everything. The amount of people that have have heard this message and been a part of this movement is incredible to me. So thank you for tuning in. Thank you for, you know, encouraging me to continue because your your downloads, even if this is your only one, encourages me to keep doing what I'm doing and follow my dreams. So thank you. And as always, we wrap this up. Keep on shining.
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