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, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Thanks for tuning in. You know, the entire month of July, it seems like our focus has been motivating yourself to push past those barriers, being more confident, and really taking hold of the performer that you're supposed to be and stepping into that role. After you do that, or actually while you're doing that, and you're putting work and you're motivating yourself and you're being confident, I want to spend time, and I want to kind of remind you of once you make the choice to turn this into the career that you want it to be, your focus has to also shift a little bit to your audience. Why? Well, your audience is the one that's going to make your career. You aren't going to make your career. You aren't going to pay your bills. You aren't going to follow you and buy your merchandise. Your audience is going to do that. You're going to be the ones that are ultimately going to decide whether or not you get paid, and ultimately decide whether or not you get paid enough to make this your primary career. Yes, it's possible. Without being super famous, like superstardom, everything, it's possible to make this your primary career without being a millionaire. I mean, you think about most single income families are making less than $50,000 a year. You could make $50,000 a year as a performer. Maybe not your first, second, third, or fifth year, but after 10 years of doing this, yeah, you could work your way up to $50,000 a year performing. There's other things to do besides getting on stage to make money. I don't know if I've mentioned this, but I want to send you that list. I can name a few. I mean, you can sell merchandise. You can sell stock photos and videos of yourself performing. You can have a sponsor or a brand that you are kind of not really a spokesman for. Kind of a spokesman for in a way, and all these are other ways that you can get paid, and you can check out more of that list. I'll give it to you. Just put in your email on my website, beingonstage.com, and I'll send you the whole list of 10 things you can do to get paid. But of course, our primary thing is getting paid for stepping on stage. That's what we want. I believe that's what you want. Otherwise, why are you listening to this podcast? You want to step in front of your audience. You want to make this a career. You want this to be. You want to make this your life. That's called a passion, my friend, and I admire your passion. I really, really do. Let's talk about the steps you need to take, and not really steps. I mean, I'm not going to call this like a step program or anything like that, but let's just talk about a few of the things that you got to keep in mind and kind of work at while you're making this your career. So starting out, getting on stage, you know, getting over that stage fright and building your confidence, and even further in your career, you know, you could always use You know, you could always use a confidence boost. You could always use a kick in the pants and motivation, stuff like that. But once you get beyond that, and once you start really, really building your career, maybe you've gotten a few gigs here and there. Maybe they haven't even been paid yet. Maybe you're still doing mic, you know, open mic nights. So how do you get, you know, how do you change from motivated and confident to getting paid? Well, I said your audience, your audience is the one that's going to make that decision. So how do you do that? First, you have to create a connection while you're on stage. Now, anything can be considered a connection. Eye contact is a connection. Okay, I think I shared, I'm sharing something on Facebook later this week and Instagram of ways you can connect with your audience from stage. And I'm going to kind of, I mean, I'm just going to go over most of them right now of how you connect with your audience from the stage. I already said, you know, eye contact. Eye contact is huge, you know. You pick the right moment and the right area of the crowd. I mean, even so much as, you know, whether you look left or right could mean something. Even changing from left to right could mean something. Sometimes the eye contact is the intensity that you need to draw people in. So a lot of coaches will tell you, you know, look into the light, look out into the audience so it appears as if you're looking towards everybody. And that's true. But there is also something to say for making direction. Correct eye contact with a few individuals. And they don't have to be chosen individuals. They don't, I'm not saying plant somebody in the audience. I'm saying just random people that, listen, if they're looking at you, they are wanting to be drawn. They want to be drawn in more. Make that eye contact at that crucial moment in your show. Maybe you're, maybe you're talking about something that's really difficult and it's really emotional. And you make that eye contact and you just start to well up a little tear in the corner. Of your eye that is powerful. My friend, if you make eye contact with someone, as you're starting to get emotional on stage, that is powerful. Let me, let me ask you a question. When someone gets emotional, do you not feel connected to them when you, when you talk to them? I mean, I'm saying like you're, you're talking to someone and all of a sudden they get a little emotional. Do you not feel drawn into them? That is what needs to happen on stage. You can draw them in with eye contact at the right moment. The other thing is using the stage. Now, sometimes you have a large stage. Sometimes you have a small stage. Sometimes you don't really have a stage. You're just in some type of performance space. But wherever your audience is kind of creates where your stage is. Use the area that you have. Don't be afraid to walk and take a few steps. Listen, if you, if you're playing an instrument like a guitar, for example, and you've got a microphone on a stand, take a music break and step out from behind that microphone. You know, walk over to the left hand side, you know, stage left. I've done an episode on stage directions. I hope we all know them. Walk over to stage left and play a little bit for the, for the audience. Or try not to use a microphone on a stand, you know, try a wireless mic. Try something like a headset mic where you can, you know, walk around freely and move around a little bit. Listen, a microphone stand is great. You know, if you, for emotional numbers or solemn numbers or, or even just like back, ballads and just slow, powerful numbers. But getting out from behind the microphone stand and using the stage and walking around and walking up to people, and sometimes even walking into the audience, it creates that engagement with them that there's no barrier. That, that microphone stand acts as a barrier. Listen, right now I'm, I'm talking singers, songwriters, musicians, but dancers too. You know, a lot of times with a dancer, they'll do their whole routine. You know, kind of more center stage and not downstage, but you got to have those moments where you go out towards the audience. When you approach the audience, it helps to pull them in. It helps them feel engaged, connected to you. And like, they're a part of the show. Like they're not just, they're watching something. Cause listen, if I wanted to just watch you, I would stay at home and look at your Facebook page or your Instagram or your YouTube. Cause hopefully you're posting videos of yourself. If I just wanted to watch you, I would stay at home and look at your Facebook page or your Instagram or your YouTube. If I just wanted to watch you. No, your audience wants to experience you. They want to have an experience of going to your show and seeing what you do and, and living it up. So you have to go towards them. You have to use the, use the area that you have, but also use that space you have between you and the audience and fill it up. Get closer to them. Get into them if you can. I mean, I know some stages don't allow you to, cause you have to jump off and then you can't get back on without like going. But if you have the possibility, like a flat stage or you're, you know, performing on the street or if it's just a small step or even I've performed on stages where they have steps that go down in the front of the stage, get into the audience, get in there with them. So another way you can connect with your audience and kind of get with them is sharing something real. And I talked a little bit about it when I mentioned eye contact and that is whether you're talking to them just in between numbers. Or if you're dancing for them, you can share something real and raw. And a lot of times that creates even more of a connection. So if you, if you're getting emotional, get emotional. If you're getting a little upset, get a little, no, I'm not saying yell and scream at your audience, but I'm saying if, if you have that moment in your show where there's power and there's a little bit of anger, use it. Share that real emotion that comes with the, why you created this performance, this song, this dance. This act in the first place. You know, if you have a five minute show that you're putting on or a 10 minute, 30 minute show, chances are at one moment, there's something that you've prepared because it's something that happened in your life. I used to do it all the time. I used to do song that represented how I was feeling or something I was going through. And I'll tell you, if you share that realness, that real emotion that fueled that creation of the performance in the first place, that song, that dance, that whatever, it's powerful to them. They can feel that. Basically, humans need two things. They need, well, I mean, food, water, shelter, clothes. Well, we don't need clothing, but we should have clothing nowadays. But we need connection. We need human connection. And the way that one human connects to another human is through sharing something real that they both can get behind. Whether it's, you know, some people do performances for awareness or for protest. Some people do performances just to share some emotion that's going out. Some people do powerful motivational performances. I listen to a lot of motivational music, things like Katy Perry. She has a few. Roar, Rise, I listen to Three Doors Down. That's my favorite band, but they have some motivational ones. The one I'm listening to right now is Broken. Gosh, there's so many other ones. Macklemore, the rapper, he's got one. Can't Hold Us, that's a really motivational number. But things like that, imagine those people on stage sharing those, just standing behind a microphone. No, they're going to get into the audience. They're going to get out there and share it with them and get into it. That's the best thing you can do is get into your show. Well, I guess that brings us to one of the other reasons how else you can share with them is having fun. Just simply enjoying what you're doing on stage, getting into it. And I hope you understand what I mean by getting into it. Putting your full self into that. Show into that performance and having a blast. Like, don't hold yourself back. Don't stop yourself from doing something because you're scared. Have fun with it. Even if you fall flat on your face, as long as you get up and have a laugh about it and have fun, nobody's going to care by the end of the show. Listen, OK, so speaking of having fun, there was a show I did with a buddy of mine and we're lip sync artists. We, you know, we take a song and we recreate an outfit. We recreate. We recreate the whole performance. Sometimes we tell a story. In this particular one, we were recreating a Green Day show and we didn't have any instruments at all. We decided we were going to do it kind of like, you know, little kids at home recreating a performance. So my buddy, he was the main singer. So he had a microphone, which microphone was actually, I think. It was one of those like old microphones that when you talk in it echoes like the echo phone. I don't think. I don't think they have them anymore. But when I was a kid in the 90s, they had them. So maybe you had one. Maybe your kids had one. Maybe you have no idea what I'm talking about. But there were these microphones that you could they were like neon colored. And when you talked into them, you echoed. It was like it was the coolest thing as a kid to just have that echo. So he would use that as a microphone. Another buddy of mine played, you know, played guitar. Quote, I'm using air quotes, by the way, played guitar using a broomstick as a guitar. I played the drums and we didn't have drums because, you know, we were recreating a show almost like an air band, like air guitar, air drums. But I used bar stools as drums. I laid one down facing the audience where the stool part was facing the audience. That was the bass drum. And then I had three stools around me. Those were the snare and the toms. And then for cymbals, I think we used I think we've turned a bar stool upside down and we put like paper plates or something like we glued paper plates on it. I don't remember what we use for cymbals, but we had fake cymbals, too. And I'll tell you, during that show, I played the crap out of them stools. I mean, I won. I had to really, truly believe in myself that those were drums. I had to to believe that those were drums. And that's imagination for you. We all have imagination. We're creative. We have imagination. So I was you know, I had to believe in myself. I had to put my my thoughts together. As if those were drums. So I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm playing, I'm going to town. I'm getting into it, man. I'm having a blast. I feel like a drummer on stage in front of a million dollar or a million dollar, a million people audience. Like, I feel like I'm performing in front of literally hundreds of thousands of people on these drums, a.k.a. bar stools. The point of this little story here is I had fun. I had a blast. And that created a connection because you know what people said to me afterwards? Nobody said, why were you playing bar stools? What were you? What was the point? Nobody questioned it. Do you know what they said to me? You were amazing on the drums. I wasn't even playing drums. And they told me I was amazing on the drums. Why? Why would someone tell me I was amazing on the drums when I'm banging on a bunch of bar stools? Because I made them believe it. So if there's something you're putting out there, there's something that you're sharing with your audience. One. You have got to believe in it first. Two. You have to have fun with it. And they will see it. They will see it as if it's meant to be seen. But if you're nervous and if you're just kind of timid about it. But the buddy that was playing the broomstick guitar, they didn't get very many comments. They got questioned by their friends. And they hung out with negative people. I mean, what can I say? What was that about? And they came to me and told me. They're like, I don't think we should have done that. We should have used real instruments. It's like, why? We had a blast. Well, so-and-so said this and so-and-so. You know what? I can give two craps what so-and-so said. Because get into your show and have fun with it. And they won't be able to say anything. Nothing. All right. I always run long on these podcasts now. I just get going. I'm noticing the further I get into July, the longer the podcasts are going. So hopefully I'm not just rambling. Because I don't go back and listen to these very often. Sometimes I do. But hopefully I'm not. Just rambling on and on and on. But I guess the point here is when you're on stage, you have to create that connection with your audience. And I've given you four ways you can do it. That connection with your audience is going to help you get paid. It's going to help you move forward in your career. It's going to build your fan base. Because those people that believe in you, those people that see you and connected with you and engaged with you, that you connected with and engaged, those are the people that are going to turn around, follow you on social media, come to your next show, buy your merchandise, and support you in your growing success. I'd love to hear from you. I'd love to work with you, actually. So you can jump on my calendar, beingonstage.com slash calendar. We can chat it up. It's completely free. But I'd love to work with you and work through some of the things that you're working through. Find new ways to connect with your audience. Find new ways to engage your audience. And listen, if it's just a kick in the pants you need to move you forward, I can do that too. I have no problem helping you out in that area. All right, y'all. Thanks so much for tuning in. I greatly appreciate it. I see the new listeners we've gotten. It's great to see the podcast growing and knowing that there's more artists and performers out there that are getting the motivation and inspiration and the confidence boost that they need. So thanks again for tuning in. If you haven't done so already, please leave a five-star rating and a comment on this podcast. Helps other people find the show. 18-minute show. Thanks, y'all, for listening, and have a great day, and keep on shining.
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