Performing is Like a Boat

Shut 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. Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson here, your host of the show. Welcome back, or welcome if you're here for the first time, to the Being On Stage podcast. Everything for performers to give their audience the experience they deserve and really explode to that vision that you see when you look in the mirror, that performer that you want to be. It's been a while since I've done an analogy podcast. A couple months ago I did performings like an airplane, performings like a postage stamp. There was another one, I forget the title. You can go back and check those out if you're interested in analogies, especially if this one is something, kind of like what you like. But, I mean, you can go back and listen to other podcasts. You can click subscribe and all that good stuff. So, performing is like a boat. Yeah, you know, a boat, you know. I live in Florida. Those of you that may not know, I live in Florida. I live on the east coast. And actually, I live about a block away from the ocean. I never go to the beach. I don't actually like the beach. It's ironic. I was born and raised in Florida and I don't really like the beach. And I'm not bragging or anything. I live in a small, small apartment on the beach, around the beach area. And we see, you know, we have a jetty out where we are. And a jetty is basically, I mean, well, what our jetty is, is it's a strip of rocks meant to keep. The waves from crashing into the inlet. So, we, you know, we go out to the jetty. We see a bunch of boats come in and out. And depending on how the weather is going, you know, the boats may crash up against waves. They may, sometimes it looks really rocked. Today, especially, we had a little of a tropical depression rolling through this weekend. And today, the waves were, I mean, it was choppy. Where I live is kind of like we have the state of Florida and then we have what's called a barrier island. It's called Hutchinson Island. You can. You can Google it. You can say, hey, you want to Google where I live? No. But, so, there's a little bit of water between the Hutchinson Island where we live and what we call the mainland, which is really just a short bridge. It's not like a long trek. Even the river, though, it's the Indian River. But even the river that goes through between the island and the state, the mainland, it was really choppy today. And, you know, when the waves get a little choppy, you see the boats. They're rocking. And I've been on a boat when it's rocking. It don't feel good. I don't get terrible, terrible sickness. Oh, my mother. My poor mother. She'd get terrible sickness. We went on a cruise. The whole first day was terrible. That's neither here nor there. So, sometimes the boat's just, you know, smooth. The water's fine. Most of the days, you know, you have a little bit of wave depending on where you're boating and everything. And sometimes, especially when you slow down. When you slow down on the boat. You get a little more rocky. But, you know, if you keep a consistent speed going, no matter if it's slow or fast, you know, you keep a consistent speed going, you're pretty steady. You're pretty steady in the water. And around where I live, we also have, oh, God, probably like four marinas. It's, yeah. We're definitely a beach town. But we have like four or five, even, oh, God, there's probably ten. There's tons of marinas around where I live. We've got a port and all that. So, you know. Not only do we see the boats going in and out on the water and the inlet and through the river and everything, we also have a lot of boats sitting at the marina. And listen, bear with me. I know we're like four minutes in and I'm talking about freaking boats and where I live and how great it is. But listen, this is not what this is about. Tune in. Stay to the end. It's going to be worth it. It always is. I promise. This is kind of what I do. I take stories that I learn from other performers. I take stories from business. Songs and sometimes even folktales, television, movies. Today just happens to be boats. But performing is really like a boat. And here's where we're going to turn, okay? So we have the boats on the water. They're going through the water. They keep a consistent speed. They're steady. Sometimes they slow down. It gets choppy. If they don't keep a consistent speed, it gets really choppy. And, you know, you can't always control the environment. You can't always control what the weather is going to be like. And then you have the boats that are sitting in the harbor. Now, the boats that are sitting in the harbor or the marina, they're tied to a dock. They're pretty steady. The water may rock them once in a while, but they're not really in any danger, you know? You want to be like the boats out on the water. And here's, as a performer, you don't want to be tied to a dock. And here's why. You know, the boats out on the water, although, you know, there may be rough seas at times. You know? There's going to be rough days as a performer where things, and not just days, weeks, even months, where things just aren't really going your way. But the cool thing about boats, unless you're running out of gas, which, let's pretend the boats have unlimited gas supply, because you have an unlimited gas supply, by the way. Like, if you're talking on the boat, you just got to keep on going until you get to smoother waters, you have enough gas to get there as a performer. Your boat, your actual boat on the water may run out of gas, but it's going to run out of gas. It's way, well, well, well before you do. So, you have the tenacity or the persistence inside you. You have it already to keep going and to just propel through that rough ground, that rough day, that rough week, that rough time period, and get to those smoother waters. But if you tie yourself to a dock, and if you stay safely at the marina, you're not going anywhere. And when. When I say. Listen, I've never in my life said those words to a performer. So, I'm not actually saying to you that you're not going anywhere, because I don't believe that one bit. But if you tie yourself down, meaning you stay safe, you stay where you're comfortable, you stay where the weather can't really affect you because you have this safety, this harness holding you, almost kind of like a straitjacket, holding you back. And, you know, you're not going to drift away. You're not really going to be taken in by the elements. You're not going to run out of gas because you're not even running. If you stay safe as a performer and you tie yourself down, you're never going to get to where you see yourself. Because you can. You can absolutely get there. It takes work, you know. It takes going out into the water. It takes taking a risk, you know. Think about. Okay. So, here's the thing about boats. And this is kind of cool. Like, this analogy, when I heard it, I didn't make this entirely up. I'm expanding on it. But I heard this real quick analogy about boats. So, here it is. And this is actually what kind of spawned this whole podcast. Boats are made to crash against the waves. Like, they're made to be able to take a little bit of a beating. Now, different boats can take a different beating. Different people can take different, you know, different waves. And different tough times. But most boats are made to be out on the water. To be crashing into those waves. To be in a little bit of a risky situation. Boats weren't made to tie up to a dock. And you as a performer are not made. You as a performer do not have this talent that you have. You don't. You weren't given this talent so that you could tie yourself safely to a dock. You were given this talent so that. You can get out there in the waves. And you can get out there and take risks. And you can get out there and propel yourself forward to the vision that you see. I know you see a vision. We all see. I see a vision for myself with this podcast. I saw a vision and still see a vision for myself as a performer. If we talk, if we worked one-on-one, I'd see a vision for you. It's kind of what I do. I see things. Instead of seeing dead people, though, I see amazing performers. That's my gift. Oh, speaking of working together, before I forget, you can hop on my calendar. Go to beingonstage.com slash calendar and pick a date and time. Put in your name and your email. I'll confirm your date and time, your appointment. And I'll give you a call directly from my cell phone. And we can start working together and, you know, just see where things go. But that's part of taking a risk. You know, jumping on someone else's. calendar and reaching out for that little bit of help, that little bit of guidance, mentorship, whatever you want to call it, to help propel you forward. That's part of taking a risk. That's getting out there and crashing against those waves. That's stepping out of the marina, you know, starting that engine, untying that rope, and going off into the unknown. Because really, you know, I'm actually not even a boater. Like, I'm not even a boat person. I don't own a boat. My uncle owned a boat, I've been on a boat a couple of times, I've been on a cruise. things like that. But I don't actually own a boat. But we were talking about renting a boat and I couldn't imagine renting a boat and kind of taking it easy. Like I would never say that to the people that are renting me the boat. But I wouldn't imagine renting a boat and getting a boat and getting out there and just kind of like puttering along at a low speed. Unless I'm in a manatee zone, of course. But no, quite frankly, I want to crank it up. I'm going to see what it can do. I'm going to, you know, I'm going to let loose a little bit. And that's what you need to do. That's that's that part of getting uncomfortable. That's that part of, you know, that unknown that I mentioned is crank yourself up. That sounds weird. Crank yourself up. Treat yourself like a boat and crank it up. You know, take it to top speed. See what you can do. See what this baby is made of. And the baby I'm talking about, that's you. See what you're made of. I understand. Listen, I'm right there with you. I get the fear. I was I was that kid that that froze on stage and stared blankly at the audience with my mouth hanging open. Like I get the fear. I do. One hundred percent. It is very, very nerve wracking. It's scary to get out there. And it's scary to put yourself even if you've been doing it before, even if you've been performing for years, it's scary to put yourself out there and to take that next step and to really let yourself out there. Let yourself crank up. If you crank that engine, it can be scary. Absolutely. But you're never going to know if you don't crank it up, turn the keys, start the engine, get out of the marina, go for a boat ride, enjoy the scenes, enjoy the water, enjoy the crashing of the waves. That's part of the journey. And those waves crashing. Listen, that represents some hard work. That represents some obstacles. That represents people that are going to stand in your way and or at least people that are going to try to stand in your way. That represents all the negativity in the world and the hatred that that you may encounter just for going after your dream. But you're made. You're made to crash against those waves. You're made to take it because it's going to help you grow and it's going to propel you and really propel you more like a jet ski into that performer that you want to be. I'm looking forward to working with you. I'm looking forward to to watching you grow and and. And helping you get there. You know, that's that's. As my passion, that's what I love to do. That's why I created this podcast to to help performers like you. As always, my rock stars, my favorite people in the world are my podcast listeners, by the way. But as always, keep on shining.