Who's on Your Side?

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, emcee, drag, burlesque, performance art, or street performer, this is the show for you. Hey Rockstars, Reggie Dawson here, your host of the Being On Stage podcast. Welcome back, thanks for tuning in. How many people are on your side? You know, how many people are rooting for you, cheering for you, you know? It seems like everyone else has all these fans and all this popularity and have really got it going on. Well, if you're raised in the 90s, that makes more sense to you. But they just got it. Who's on your side? So listen, again, my name is Reggie Dawson. I coach performers, I help them improve their onstage presence, their onstage performance, and overall just connect with their audience, build their fan base, and explode their dreams and their career. And that's what I do. I help performers like you. And it has been a little while since I've done a podcast. You know, I want to tell you the holiday week was a busy, busy week for my family down here at the Dawson house, I guess we can call it. And then last week was crazy, equally as crazy. But, you know, we are always going to come back better than ever. And away we go with who's on your side, you know? Let me break down what I'm talking about, you know. A lot of times when we are, especially if you're just getting started or if you're just getting back into it, or if you're trying to find, anytime you're really trying to find your way into something new or something different. A lot of times, you know. We see other people, and they seem to have it all. You know, they have these fans. They have people coming to their shows. I mean, hopefully we all have people coming to our shows. They have shows. They're getting booked. They're getting paid. They got all these followers on social media. Yeah, they're doing it, you know. They're living the dream. And it's really easy to get sucked into feeling like, you know, well, who's, you know, what about me? What about me? What about me? Ah, man, I always think about the movie, well, movie Hook. Smee. What about Smee? If you, again, if, again, 90s kid, 100%. So, who's on your side anyways? And I got to tell you, it's a question that I think everyone asks themselves no matter what they do in life, whether you perform or you're in a corporate office somewhere. Or. Um, I don't know, maybe you're working at McDonald's. I think everyone, uh, sometimes feels like, you know, who's on, who's on my side, who's rooting for me, who's, who's got my back. And I, I gotta tell you, it's, it's tough. I'm with you. It's a tough, tough feeling to face. It's a tough thing to, to, to, to wonder and to think about and, and to feel, you know, to feel like you're not really sure who's on your side. And I gotta tell you, you know, there, there are, there are more people. There are more people on your side than, than I think, you know, and it's incredible to think about and it's actually, I should say, it's incredible to realize and then once you've had that realization to, to, you know, to really think back and the, the amount of people that are rooting for you and, and have your back and are on your side and they, they really want to see you succeed. That amount of people is going to grow every single day that you put work into doing what you love. Every single day. You, you will literally grow the amount of people that believe in you and I sound like I'm talking crazy. I sound like, I don't know what I sound like, honestly. You're probably scratching your head saying, okay, Reggie, well, can you get to how, like, how does that work exactly? How is, how are all these people on my side? Because I don't see them. I get it. I do. I get it. There's, listen, listen. Okay. There are going to be times. And this may be one of those times that. It's hard to see through all the, all the bull that is in the world or that's going on in, in, in your life and in your situations. It's, it's hard to see through. I'll, I'll give you, it's like, it's like a thick fog, haze, smoke combined, kind of covering up what's in front of you and what's in front of you that you can't see. And, and maybe you just haven't. Haven't pushed your way through that fog enough. There are, there are literally people waiting to see you. There are, there are people waiting to support you. And all you have to do, literally all you have to do is just get there. Well, how do you get there? There is, this is, I'm going to go Yoda on you. And oh my God, baby Yoda is so flipping cute. I'm sorry. I'm derailing. I'm squirreling. I may be a little behind. Oh my God. I'm, I'm, there's an obsession with baby Yoda right now and I'm about to catch it. Um, any, oh my God, I'm derailing again. But anyways, I'm going to go Yoda on you. There's not really a how you get it or how you do it. You just, you just get it. You just do it. And, and it's, it's as simple as putting one step or one foot in front of the other and taking it step by step. Step number one, rehearse. Step number two, rehearse again. Step number three, learn something. And I'm talking in step number one, two, three, four, but let me just give you some ideas. Okay. You, you rehearse, you continue to learn something. You start posting those videos that you see other artists doing. Those artists that have it all and all those followers, followers, man, I can't talk tonight. You have all the, those people that have all those followers. You start posting videos like that, you know? You start pumping out things. You start taking pictures of yourself rehearsal, rehearsing. You start, you know, experimenting with different, different things, adding new elements into your show and into your performance. Start sending emails to different venues. And who cares if they've booked acts like you before or not? Listen, I can tell you a story, okay? Locally, there is a, a restaurant, like kind of like a restaurant attached to a hotel type of deal. Um, it's attached to a day's end of all things. A day's end, um, kind of, I wouldn't say like very bottom of the hotel motel chains, but like since they were bought by, since they're under the Wyndham franchise, a lot of them are kind of elevated a little bit. Like they're not exactly like skeezy, but they're pretty down there, you know? So it's attached to a day's end. There's this, this restaurant and, um, it's, it's not a hole in the wall. It's pretty big, but it's, uh, you know, the booths are mismatched. The tables aren't always, you know, nicely organized. They are scratched and things like that. And just not, not one of the most appealing places. Well, recently through just, you know, working at it and making phone calls and, and asking the right questions and talking to the right people, um, of all, of all things, this, this restaurant, this, uh, I don't, I mean, I don't know who owns it. I don't know their background, but never before have they ever had anything to do. With the LGBT community, but they're having, they have a, a drag queen brunch every Sunday and they're hosting a drag queen pageant in a couple of weeks in my, you know, in my, in my hometown, my hometown is not historically friendly to that community. And this is not about that in any way, shape or form. I'm just giving you an example of, you know, putting yourself out there and making those phone calls and making those contacts with people and sending emails. And, and trying to get yourself booked is a huge step in the direction of getting people to believe in you. You know, that's, that's what you do. Like first and foremost, and I should back up, like, I know I didn't, wasn't going to do like step one, step two, but you got to believe in yourself. Like you got to believe in your talent. You don't have to believe that you have, that you're perfect because you're not, you're never going to be, you shouldn't be, you shouldn't even try. Perfect doesn't exist. Perfect is a fallacy. Perfect is bull. Um, you should try to be you and you should try to be the best you that you can. And you should try to share your talent with as many people as you can. So in, in the sense of doing that, you got to believe in yourself. You got to believe in your talent. You don't have to, you don't have to believe that you're perfect. You don't have to believe that you're the best. Um, you don't even have to be the best. You don't even have to be that great. Honestly, you just have to continue to contact people until someone says yes. And they will say yes. And this is what I'm saying. Like, like that. That thick fog, haze, smoke thing I was talking about. This is how you get through that to see the people that are supporting you and the people that want to believe in you because there will be a yes, there will be a booking. There will be an opportunity. You have to keep seeking it. You have to keep one, you have to keep working it. And I'm doing this one, two thing. I'm going to start doing ABC instead of one, two, three. It's easy. Okay. I'm done. You have to one, work at your talent. and continue to work at it, and two, you have to continue to ask people to let you share it with them that's it that's how you do it that's how you continue to get through this haze and i'm telling you if you're working on your talent and you're putting yourself out there together like hard work and putting yourself out there people are going to come out of the woodwork to support you how i support you already and i don't even know you there are people that are on your side i'm on your side dude bro sis whatever lady girl whatever you want to be called i'm just like going through names now i'm sorry i'm i'm going off the deep end here um and that's not what i try to do but listen i'm on your side i got your back i believe in you and i don't have i don't i don't have to know everything about you all i have to know is that you're going to work on your talent and you're going to put yourself out there and if those two things are happening you got this like you're you're going to get to the yes you're going to find an opportunity that's going to be amazing and yeah you're still going to have little failures here and there you're going to have big failures here and there but everything that happens as long as you work hard and put yourself out there everything that happens is going to lead to more success and is going to lead to more people supporting you more people seeing what you have what you have to offer that person that you're sitting there watching that you want to be and thinking about all those followers and and fans and bookings that they have the only difference between you and them is they kept going that's it that's all you gotta do and if you listen hey i'm still available my calendar has not closed i want to work with you if you want to work with me and you want to really start putting one foot in front of the other and and make a plan and set it in motion jump on my calendar i'll call you we'll talk for like 30 minutes we'll we'll make a good solid plan we'll talk about a few things you can do and then we'll you know we'll move on to work together and and build something wonderful out of what you got build something awesome fantastic amazing and with that oh i gotta tell you how to get to the calendar duh uh being on stage dot com slash calendar uh you can also shoot me an email if you have any trouble with that page reggie being on stage dot com um i'm here for you that's that's that's the premise of it i want to see you succeed i want to see you in front of those audiences and just knocking it out of the park all right take care everyone and keep on shining