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. I want to talk about a question that I have never been asked. And listen, this could be a question that you've never been asked, but it deserves an answer nonetheless. I encourage you to put your answer out there for the world as well. And a lot of times this is an answer that you have to put out there without ever being asked. Sometimes when you do ask, when you are asked, you may struggle. You may not be able to find an answer, but when you do find the answer, you've got to answer the question. You have to put it out there. So now that I have completely just confused you and probably gotten you to the point of turning off this podcast, the question is, why do you do it? Why do you continue to do this thing that you love no matter what? So why does that question deserve to be answered? The answer to that question is probably one of the. One of the most passionate statements you will ever make in your life is why you continue to do what you love no matter what. And that's a question I actually want to ask or answer. I want to answer for you today is why I continue to do what I love. I've never been asked this question. I've never had anyone email me and say, hey, Reggie, why are you doing a podcast every day? Or I've never had anyone in my personal life ask me why I decided to coach performers and, you know, why I continue to do what I love. I've never even had any of my old people that I've performed with, like my old performance. I call them my performance buddies, but whatever. My show crew. They've never asked me why I do this either. And I find it odd because a lot of times when I was performing, I got asked why I like to perform. Or I've gotten asked why I perform. Or, you know, what makes. What do I like about performing? Why I perform? And, you know, those type of questions. But I've never been asked why I do this. And I find it odd. But at the same time, it's also. People may be afraid to find out just how passionate you are about that thing that you do. That talent that you have. That performing thing. That juggling thing. That singing thing. That dancing thing that you do. That, you know, oh, you're working on that whole aerial thing, right? Like the thing. Oh, I find it. It just crushes me. I actually do have people ask me how my podcast thing is going. And it. Oh, man. My eyes twitch and my nose crinkles and I just. It's not a thing. It's my passion. So, I podcast every day now. Actually, this podcast has been around for almost two years. It was a little inconsistent in the past. I would do anywhere from two to. 13 episodes in a month. I follow the format kind of of a guy that I listen to. A podcast that I really enjoy called Every Day is Saturday. It encourages entrepreneurs to take hold of their dreams and go for it, basically. And actually, it's a really good companion to this because we cover a lot of the same things. And I'm not saying we're a companion. Like, we don't work together or anything like that. But we cover a lot of the same things. I find my inspiration from his podcast some of the time. For this podcast. And that's also what I do. I find inspiration in podcasts, philosophy, motivational quotes, movies, music, business concepts, marketing concepts. I find inspiration from all over the place. And I turn it into something that a performer can use to create a better connection with their audience. You know, finally turn their talent into that performance. That they want to do. And put it in front of an audience. And then, you know, turn that performance. If you want to take that next step. You turn that performance into the experience for your audience. So that your show is a thing to do. Like, you know when you go on TripAdvisor and you look at things to do. And, like, we have Orlando just about two hours away from where I live. And if you do things to do in Orlando, you get things like WonderWorks. It's like a museum type interactive science-y. It's an. Like, you've got to look it up. WonderWorks. The building's upside down. Like, that's how it is. You've got, you know, Disney World, Universal Studios. You also have smaller things like WonderWorks. You have dinner shows like Medieval Nights. You have restaurants that are like Coco Bongo's or something like that. Dick's Last Resort. Things like that. You have all these things to do in Orlando. And you can turn your performance into a thing to do. You see it all the time. You know, the events posted on Facebook. You know, it's a thing to do or it's an event to go see. And the artists and the performers that pump up their event and make it into an experience. And then, you know, when you're there, it really is an experience. That's what I like to help performers achieve is making that experience happen for the audience. And that's kind of a. That's like, I don't know. I love doing it. And this is where we're getting into the why. Like, I've kind of given you all the how and the what, I guess. But, oh, how I do that is the whole getting my inspiration everywhere. I share it on this podcast. I also let people jump on my calendar. And we talk for like 30 minutes about, you know, specific things that they're facing or barriers that they're trying to get through. And I help craft a plan to help them get through that next step. And then, you know, if we want to work together beyond that, that's completely cool as well. We'll discuss that opportunity. But I really want to help get you going. Like, let's crush the next step. And then we'll work on getting beyond that. Like, that's, you know, step-by-step is how we make our careers happen for ourselves. And that's what I do. You know, I share it on this podcast. I talk to people on the phone so we can work through their specific stuff. You can hop on my calendar. You can go to beingonstage.com slash calendar. I think I'm having some sort of security issue with my site. It's okay to proceed. I've tested it on multiple computers. But I am aware of it if you use a certain way. If you use a certain browser, you might see a security error. But I promise you it's perfectly fine. But yeah, beingonstage.com slash calendar. You can pick a date and time and we'll talk about your next step. The reasons I do this. Okay, so I performed myself. I did lip sync and dance. We kind of did faux productions. Like, if you've ever been to a live showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show. They do, like, lip sync and the movie. The movie plays behind them. I basically do that. But with many, many different, you know, production type shows. Songs, things like that. And I go out on stage and I wear, you know, a fancy outfit. I act as if I'm actually singing and performing the song. Except it's very outlandish. It's very animated. And it's very, very much over the top. And I really love to do it. And I was really good at certain aspects of it. I did make some mistakes along the way. Some incredibly stupid mistakes. That I really want to help you not make. And that's where I get my why. You know, there were opportunities that I passed up. And there were mistakes that I made. And things that I didn't do that I should have done. For even stupider reasons. You know, I was scared. I was worried about money. I was too concerned about being around my friends. And being around what was familiar. I was comfortable with being comfortable. And I realized that was a mistake. And ultimately it led to my career just kind of fizzling. Fizzling out, to say the least. I changed my sights to helping other performers avoid those mistakes. While still doing the things that I've learned. I learned from a lot of different performers. And I still continue to learn and do the research. And, I mean, I read books on performing. I read blogs. I listen to other podcasts. Side note: There's not many other podcasts out there. I watch videos and things like that of, you know, how people do it. And how they put their heart into it. And how they learn from performers and, you know, things like that. And I share that with you because I don't think that should be something that you have to, you know, learn for yourself. I had to learn it for myself. And sometimes I turned away the help that was offered to me. And I turned away the opportunity that was offered to me. And it was stupid. And that's what drives me. Is that I love to see another performer, you know, get out on that stage. And absolutely just crush their performance. Because we worked on it for a few hours here and there. And it doesn't take much to turn your performance from average to holy crap. Or wow. From average to wow. I think that's my new catchphrase. From average to wow. It doesn't take much. It's a couple of hours of work a couple of times a week. And, you know, as I would help these performers and I would see them, like, improve and get better and better and better as we continued through a program. I used to have a coaching program that I'd help performers through week by week. certain skills. And as they progress and as I see them explode into the performer that they're meant to be, I see them repeat my mistakes. And that's an aspect that I was missing. I was so focused on getting them good on stage, I neglected helping them with their personal stuff, like with the drama and the politics that come with being a performer. And I have plenty of experience with it. And the best advice I can give you, and I'll give this away for free, is don't get involved. Like, truly and really stay neutral, don't get involved. That's the free advice that I'll give you right there. Drama and politics, it's not your concern when you're there to perform. Period. And I don't mean politics like U.S. government politics. I mean the politics that come with working with other performers, working with, you know, managers and promoters and owners. And bartenders and DJs and things like that. There's a lot of politics to go with it and a lot of, yeah, just stay neutral and walk away from drama and fights. That's probably the best advice I could give you in that department. But there's mistakes that I made like that, that I don't want to see other performers make those mistakes because I know where that path leads. I've been down that path. You don't want to go down that path. If you have this drive and this passion and this vision of where you want to go, those mistakes that I can, oh, I could list them for you. I could list them for you. But those mistakes are mistakes that you don't want to, you don't want to live through. You don't want to deal with because there goes your dream, pretty much. But that's, that's just it. You got to, that's, that's why I do what it is that I do. That's why I do the podcast thing. Because I want to see performers explode on stage. I want to see performers improve and get better. And just, you know, watching the looks on your faces when you are realizing that your dreams are possible is an incredible thing for me to watch. Like, honest to God, it, I, okay. Savvy moment, y'all. Um, most of the time when, when someone that I've, you know, mentored or coached, like when they, when I see it finally happening for them and I see them realize that it's happening for them, like it, it brings tears to my, my eyes, y'all. Like, like no joke. I'm a little bit of a sappy guy. Uh, but no, it, it literally brings a tear to my eye to like, see you guys just be the, the performer and the artist, uh, that you are meant to be. That person that you envision in your head, because you can absolutely do it. And I want to see you do it. I want to see you just absolutely crush it and just blast off towards your dreams. It's, it's so fun to watch. It's, it's a lot more fun to experience, but it's so fun and amazing to watch as well. And listen, if, if you'd be so kind to let me watch your explosion, again, hop on my calendar, beingonstage.com slash calendar. Love, absolutely love to talk to you and just watch you explode in a, you know, dream sense. Keep on shining.
PodcastTranscript AI