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. Hey, rock stars, Reggie Dawson here. Welcome back to the Being On Stage podcast. I am back home. I am back home. Thank God I am back home. If you're just tuning in, this past weekend I was about, just about two hours away. Me and my daughter went down to sell some products at a mall south of us. And it was my first time down there doing this. Listen, I talk about performing. I loop everything into performing. But I do get my inspiration from everywhere. And one of the things I do on the side is I also sell beard care products and beard shirts. You can be passionate about more than one thing. And my beard is my second passion. So there you have it. But listen, so I was down there selling my products. And I promise I'll get to performing. But it all ties in together. Just you wait. Just you wait. So we were down there selling my products. And it just. I've done it before in the malls. As like a pop-up. That's a thing in malls down here in Florida. I don't know if that's a thing where you're at. But that's a big thing. They do like a pop-up mart. Like a pop-up store in the mall. Like you get your Tupperware, your paparazzis, your Color Street. You know, your normal vendor people. Then you have the people that make their own wood signs. And the people that make chimes out of wine bottles. And then you have me. You know, the beard guy. And. So it just. It was a new mall. It was a new place. And it just. It wasn't. It wasn't working out. We went down there for two days. Saturday, Sunday. It was just me and my daughter. Stayed in a hotel overnight. That was new and different. Daddy-daughter trip. But it was fun. We played Mancala before bed. And that was pretty much it. We sold beard care. We went out to eat for sushi. And we played Mancala. Anyways. Oh God, I keep saying anyways. But it just. It didn't work out in the mall. Like we had a nice time between the two of us. But it just didn't work out in the mall. It's good to be home. I miss my wife. And of course my daughter missed her mom. She's 14. So she's pretty responsible. Like she's good for herself. She's good. Don't tell her I said that. But she missed her mom and everything. But this mall that we went to. It just. It wasn't our scene. It wasn't like about the people. Well, it was about the people. I don't know. Up here when people go shopping at our vendor market. It's like they go there. For the vendors. And down there people were actually there for the mall. So you didn't get a whole lot of it. Like they didn't even look. They just walked by this table that's standing there. And not even look what's on it. It's the weirdest thing. I don't think I've ever seen anything like it. I mean me. I walked by a table. I'm going to glance. Like these people just straight ahead. They were there. They knew what they wanted. And they did not need to see what I had to offer. And today was a little bit. Better talk to a few more people. And actually made just a little bit of more money. Totally did not break even. I definitely spent more money than I made. And that's kind of where we're going to shift into performing. This happened to me before when I was performing on stage. Which is the, you know, being on stage, performing on stage. A long time ago. And when I say a long time ago, I mean like ten years ago when I could hop on stage and do my. I went down to a club down south and I did really well the first time, which is quite opposite of this, but I did pretty well the first time they invited me back. And I guess between the two nights they had switched up their DJ and I don't know if you know about club, you know, club nights, but usually when you switch a DJ that could change your entire crowd, which was the case, which was definitely the case in this, this night of performing. They switched up the DJ and it. I went down there doing rock to a club that was playing hip hop music and reggae and I did Marilyn Manson music, which is not my normal thing. Like it was a Halloween show, but I guess they were not celebrating Halloween that night. A couple of people I thought were going to punch me in the face because they were a little scared of clowns, I guess. And I did a whole clown number. So it didn't go over so hot, which I kind of felt like I thought I found myself thinking about that today. Like, man, every time I come this far. South, it just doesn't seem to work out like this. Just it's not my scene. It's not where I'm going to excel. And you know what? That's going to happen to you, too. And it doesn't matter what you do on stage or how long you've been doing it or what level you're at, whether you're just starting out or you've been doing this for, you know, most your life. It's going to happen where you're going to go someplace and you're going to put a lot into a man. I probably pumped about two hundred and fifty dollars into this weekend and I came home with less than 50, you know, profit. Well, that I made. And that's that's going to happen to you, too, whether you work. Listen, when I performed, it was for tips. I did not take off my clothing. I don't care what anybody says. I was not a stripper. Not that there's anything wrong with being an exotic dancer, but I just didn't take off my clothes. But I did work for tips. It's a thing in the world of lip sync. You kind of work for tips. And there were nights when I would spend easily one hundred, one hundred and fifty dollars and my pay would be a nice. Fifty to seventy five bucks. But, you know, on top of that, I might have taken home five dollars in tips. And now that was that was a crap night, man. There's nights when I didn't take home one single dollar. Case in point, the night down south when I did, you know, Marilyn Manson style rock at a hip hop club. Yeah, that went over like a fart in church. Which kind of felt like this weekend. So listen, when this happens to you. And notice. I say when, because if it hasn't happened to you yet, it's going to happen. You're going to enter this place that it's just not for you. It's not your scene. It's not. Or it's or you're just going to have an off. I mean, not that you're going to have an off night, but there's going to be a change in crowd or something's going to be different all of a sudden. And you're going to have nights that it just doesn't go over nights or days. You're going to have shows. You're going to have performances that just it doesn't go over. It doesn't do what you were expecting it to do. The crowd doesn't react the way that you plan them to react. And that's 100 percent normal. It's you're not the only person that this has happened to. I guarantee this is half. This is this has happened to every single person that has set foot on a stage anywhere in the world. And yeah, we're worldwide on this podcast, by the way. Yeah. Last time I checked, it was in like 50 countries. What? Man, that felt good to say. Sorry. Sorry. Giddy happy moment. So. I'm super tired. I'm exhausted. So I'm going off six different directions. But keep up. We're getting there and it's going to be good. So when this happens to you, it's just not going to go over. You're going to find places that aren't your scene. And how what are you going to do afterwards? Because let me tell you, I can tell you after this weekend and after that night. And it was actually West Palm Beach this weekend. I was in Fort Lauderdale. But after that night in West Palm Beach 10 years ago, I took a good, long, hard look. And, you know, what went wrong and where I went wrong and what I could have done differently. And truthfully, there's probably nothing I could have done differently. I was bound and determined to do the performances that I had planned for. And I had put a lot of money into that. And, oh, I mentioned this on an episode recently. I can't remember which one. It was something about getting it was whichever one is talks about getting paid or your worth or I don't remember the title. But I actually talked about this night. This is the night when they tried to cut my pay. And half and I had to pay the other performers and I didn't take home nothing. But this is the same night. And I understand why, because, man, I had to get something out of that. But I didn't. I got like two dollars in tips. And that was from other performers that came with me. But it's going to happen, you know. And afterwards, you feel like, why did I even try this? Why did I why did I go for this? Why did I think I could perform here? Why did I think that I was good enough? To be in this club with these people and at this establishment, in this location, in this town that I travel in an hour or two hours to be at? Why did I think I could do this? Well, the answer is simple, because you can do this. Yeah, you put a little more money into it than you wanted to. And I'm talking to myself, but I'm talking to you, too. But you put a little more money into this than maybe you got out of it. But what did you learn? You learned where you don't want to perform. You learned. You learned where you're not going to go again. You learned that not everybody's going to like you. Surprise. You're not going to be everybody's cup of tea. I'm sorry. You're probably actually. I've said this before. There's already people that don't like you. There's already people that don't like your performing. So what? So what? Keep doing it. Despite them. Who cares? You're you're half performing for you, but you're really performing for your audience. And if your audience doesn't like you, you're not performing for them. doesn't get it, then keep performing until they do. or until you find the right audience so the question remains about for me this weekend whether or not i'm gonna go back uh i'm gonna think about it i'm i think i'm gonna i'm really gonna think about it i'm not sure how to approach it again but uh maybe i'll just do like a one day thing but on the other hand i also think it takes a very strong person and a very strong performer to say you know what this this particular venue this particular place is um it's not for me and and actually that's that's where i'm at right now is you know and that's that's what i said about the west palm beach night you know and oh the other thing you learn about this is to ask questions okay um i didn't ask the right questions i didn't find out the right time i had to be there on sunday i thought my spot was and i'm talking this weekend i thought my spot was going to be the same as saturday so i started off with a bad sunday because you know i'm not a big fan of the west palm beach night so i'm not going to be there on sunday because i'm not a big fan of the west palm beach night so i'm not going to be there on sunday and saturday i didn't sell very much and i didn't ask questions about you know what the crowd was like and what the people were like all i did was say hey is this available let me book it and the same thing happened to me in west palm beach 10 years ago and i know i'm bouncing back and forth but these are so these two stories in my life are so so alike and you know what they say is if you don't learn from your past you're bound to repeat it well one thing i did learn from the west palm beach crowd and i'm going to repeat it to you and i'm going to repeat it to myself is ask questions what type of music is going to be playing what are you serving you know what are your specials things like that ask questions what type of bands normally perform here what type of artist do you normally have you know are you is your crowd into this is your crowd into that ask them questions nobody knows the audience better than the people that serve them which is the venue owner manager staff promoter ask questions because listen yeah what even when you're asking questions there's still gonna be times when you put in more way more than you get out of it but you still get so much out of it because you get to be in front of your audience you get to have yourself be put yourself out there and you get the experience and you know what i don't care what anyone says and i'll say this to your face i'd say it in my mother's face you gotta have failures if you're gonna appreciate the success that's still to come with that being said uh how about this if you can't see past your recent failure let me talk you let me tell you a couple more story no if you can't see past your recent story let me help you jump on my calendar being on stage.com slash calendar let's hash this crap out and get you moving forward because listen you got to learn from your past and sometimes you gotta have a sounding board and bounce it off someone else to let them point out the lessons and that's me that's me for you i'm happy to help you and i make their talent and experience for their audience and i help performers get over the crap that set them back and squash their hopes and dreams so let me unsquash your dreams baby hop on my calendar all right take care everybody keep on shining
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