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 of the Being On Stage podcast. Thanks so much for tuning in. Listen, so it is literally 12.08, just turned to 08, 12.08 a.m., July 3rd, 2019. Here's how the day went. I woke up at 9.30 on Tuesday, July 2nd. I recorded a podcast promptly at 10 o'clock. Uploaded everything out the door by 11.15 to work by noon, barely. Work, work, work, work, work. Off at 9.30, home by 10.15. Sitting there watching television with the wife. Literally, every commercial is coming on, and I'm thinking to myself, Mmm, I gotta tell them that. I gotta get on a podcast. I need to, I, you know what, my next time I'm gonna record, I'm just, I'm, that's what I'm gonna talk about. I couldn't get it off my mind. So I told my wife, you know, I started a new movie. We're gonna watch, uh, Geostorm. Geostorm. We watched movies late. I'm off tomorrow for the holiday weekend and everything. And so, you know, I, we, we were watching a movie together. I, I get up, I get up to go get like a snack or a drink or I don't even remember. And, uh, I look at her and I said, Is it weird that I keep thinking about recording a podcast? She says to me two words. Do it. That's it. My wife is like super, super supportive. Like, incredibly supportive of all the stupid, ridiculous ideas I have. She just, like, she gets it and she goes along with it and she's great. You know, just in case she's listening. Love you, babe. Anyways, so that's how the day went. I'm sitting here and I'm thinking about this podcast and about this podcast. I'm like, I'm already two minutes in and I'm not even talking about what was bothering me so much. But listen, so here it is. I'm gonna tell you something that literally no one else will tell you. Nobody is gonna tell you this. It's the title of the episode. I mean, you know what it is. You clicked on the episode. Stop giving people what they want. Or I should say, stop giving them what they say they want. Here's something you'll hear everywhere. Sex sells. Yeah, it does. You're gonna get on stage and you're gonna be sexy and you're gonna, maybe you take something off. I did. I did the whole, you know, I'm gonna take off this jacket in a very sexy manner. And everybody does it at some point. Just to try it out, to get those little catcalls from the audience. And you get that elusive cheer from the back of the room from who knows who, who really, you know, everyone does something sexy on stage. I was talking earlier with my wife and she, she said I was at, at some point, sometimes it looked like I was a half a stripper on stage. Cause I would, I would wear a couple of layers just to add the little sex appeal into it. You know, that's, you're going to hear this everywhere. Sex, it does, it sells. But that's not what this was. People are going to say they want sexy. People are going to say they want one thing or they want to hear stuff that's popular or see stuff that's popular or see certain things or that they want you to do something like someone they saw on America's Got Talent. Stop giving that to them right now, today. Make that commitment. 100% while you're on stage, you're going to connect with your audience. You're going to engage with them. They're going to like you. They may not like you right away. Let's be honest. But you have to embrace the person that you are while you're on stage. You have to embrace your ideas. Cause you know what? Yes. Sex will sell. Every single time you put something sexy on stage, it will go off like a hit. We, you know, I had this performer that, you know, I really looked up to originally and a lot of people looked up to this individual. And I don't, I'm not tossing around names and God knows, I'm probably going to regret saying it. But listen, basically, if you took away the ability to strip down to nothing and I'm, I'm not talking like we're in a strip club here. Like that's not what this was about. This was, this happened to be an individual that was a drag King, meaning a female that performed as a male literally would just strip down. But if you took that away from her, if you took that away from her, the ability to take off her clothes, just skinny. And, you know, drag King dresses like a man appears like a man. So when she took off the clothes on stage, it was like the illusion of there was like a, it was a man's body is you should really try to look at it. Look it up. If you're not, if you're not familiar, but the point of the story is it was, it was all sexiness. You take that away. It was boring and dry and meaningless. You know, what sells better than sex? You know, what sells more than sex or sexiness or whatever? Realness, authenticity, emotion, connection, an experience, making someone feel something that they're not going to feel anywhere else. Look at, look at anyone that has done anything. I mean, you know, I'm going to use my go-tos. Okay. Let's talk singing, dancing. Look at Beyonce. Okay. Yes, she's sexy, but you know what sells more than her sexy numbers are the ones that mean something her as an individual. Sells because she stands for something. She makes a connection to people because they feel the same way as her. She, she, you know, she takes a stance. It there's meaning behind her, behind her performances. Okay. You look at dance and acrobatics. You look at Cirque du Soleil. Okay. Cirque du Soleil. It's sexy as hell. Really? I mean, come on. It's sexy, right? But it always means something. There's always a story behind. The beauty or the sexiness, you know, there's always got to be something deeper. That's what sells. That's what you need to embrace inside yourself. Don't give people what they want. You have to give people what they need. And what they need is for you to be you. I put this message perfectly like way back. Like maybe a year ago. I did episode 50 back when I numbered my episodes. Now it was probably absolutely. Terrible recording, but the message is crystal clear. It's called the secret of the secret of a great performance or the secret of an amazing performer. I don't know what it was. This is the secret of performing or something. The bottom line is the secret is you. Okay. What the secret sauce of all these individuals have that you look up to. Listen, it could be the guy that juggles on Instagram that like juggles the chainsaws and everything. It could be a comedian like Kevin Hart or Gabriel Iglesias. Those are two of my favorites, by the way. It doesn't matter. Whoever you look up to in your genre of performing. What sets them apart? I guarantee if you think about it and you get down to the brass tacks, what sets them apart is the fact that they are themselves. They are 100% real and authentically themselves every time they step on stage. Because the person that you see on stage is also the person that you see off stage. In the end, it's the person that you see on stage. In the street, driving down the road, at the photo shoot afterwards. You can't be something on stage that you're not in real life. That's what destroyed a lot of great performers. You know, they had to be something on stage and they couldn't be that in real life. Okay. And listen, I'm not going to go down that path at all. The point that I'm making here is people are going to tell you that they want to see you do. A lot of different things. They want to see you sing a certain song, dance a certain way, do a certain trick, whatever it is. But when the moment you give that to them, the moment that you sell your own creativity and your own ideas short, the moment that you buy into that popular opinion, that's the moment that you start to lose yourself. That's the moment that it starts to become fake. That's the moment that it honestly. That's the moment that it starts to fall apart. I've done that. I've gone all the way down that path, doing the popular music, dancing the way people want me to dance, you know, popping, locking and dropping, I guess. And I've done the whole sexy thing. I've gone all the way down that path. And you know where it got me? It got me people talking crap behind my back. It got me people getting me fired from places that I perform. I was blacklisted by some of the higher cast. That's what that got me, going down that path of, let me just give everybody what they want. You can't do it that way. The only way you're going to find success, the only way that you're going to be able to keep making this happen for yourself on stage, is to stop buying into what other people want and put something of yourself on stage. Tap into that creativity that you've been, you know, avoiding. Tap into that creativity that you've been avoiding. to those skills and those talents that you're afraid to experience. Explore. That is where your success is going to lie, my friend. That is where it'll all come together. If you need a little help tapping into that, I'm here for you. 100%. Listen, you can jump on my calendar. We can talk for 20, 30 minutes, talk through whatever it is that you're up against and see what we come up with. If it goes longer than 30 minutes, it goes longer than 30 minutes. It is what it is. Sometimes you need that fresh outside opinion. Sometimes you just need to bounce something off somebody. It can be scary to do it with people that you know. I'm here for you. Beingonstage.com slash calendar. Just pick a time and I'll call you directly from my cell phone. 100% me. Thanks again for listening in. I had to get this kind of out there. I know it was probably choppy. I probably sniffled or coughed. I don't know. I'm still kind of getting overwhelmed. We're in illness. I'm still planning to do another episode when I wake up. This whole podcast every day thing is going fantastic, by the way. I feel myself thinking about the podcast more often and I feel myself already getting excited about what's to come tomorrow. What am I going to say tomorrow? What am I going to talk about? If you're doing it along with me, the challenge I did was to share something every day. Whether that's a video of you rehearsing, a video of your performance, a video of you just talking, a video of you talking to the people, talking to your fans and your followers, it doesn't matter. Share something every day. This podcast is my share with you. Thank you so much again for tuning in. As always, keep on shining.
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