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. Thanks for tuning in. Listen, can I just talk to you about confidence for a minute? You know, confidence is such a powerful thing, and as performers, there's just, sometimes there's just not enough confidence going on. And I know, listen, I know what happens, you know. You get on stage, maybe the audience doesn't react the way you want. Maybe you're nervous. You're too nervous to get on, to even step on stage, you know. Maybe something's happened, you've had a bad experience. Maybe you get on stage and everything's perfectly fine, but it's just not quite there. It's not quite what you want. And, you know, I think a lot of people confuse confidence with ego. And, you know, there is such a thing as being overconfident. And there, you know, there is a borderline between confident and cocky. And it's all in how you. It's all in how you do it, though. It's like, it's all in how you behave. That's the biggest difference between confidence and cocky, you know, is, you know, it's okay to know what you can do. It's okay to, you know, be confident and believe in yourself. It's okay to believe that you have a right to be on that stage because, I'll tell you, you deserve to be up there. You have talent. You're good at what you do. You're going to keep growing, that's for sure. Yeah, you're going to keep growing. You deserve this. And you have to believe that, too. And I think that's where the confidence comes in, is believing that you deserve to be on that stage. Now, when it becomes cockiness or overconfidence is when you start treating other people like they don't. And it's when you start acting like you're entitled to some sort of extra pay. I mean, it could be pay. It could be extra attention. I was that person. I crossed that threshold between confidence and cockiness a couple of times, actually. So, listen, I'm not perfect and everybody does it at some point. It feels good, you know. You're confident. You realize it's confidence is when you realize that you deserve this and when you realize that you've earned this and when you realize that you actually might have something. That's when you start to develop confidence. And, listen, if you're not there yet. Oops, getting tongue-tied when I get going. If you're not there yet, keep working at it. Because confidence, where do you think confidence comes from? It doesn't just automatically appear inside you. No, no, no, my friend. I, too, had stage fright. I was seven years old standing in front of an audience of about 150 and I absolutely froze. I resorted to performing behind the stage as a puppeteer where no one could see me. Did that from 12 on. My first time on stage again. Where people could see me was when I was 18 years old. 18. From seven. And I've always been a performer. I'm, you know, that person that's, you know, funny and their friends, people gravitate towards. I've always been that person. I've had it in me. I've known that it's there. But to let it out again after like 11 years. And I know, listen, I know there are people that go 50 years before they step on stage. Because of that fear, that lack of confidence, that lack of belief. That you can, in fact, do this. And you do, in fact, deserve it. Why are we so down on ourselves? Why can't we be confident? And it's, here's one, you gotta, okay. I'm gonna hop up on a soapbox for a minute. So prepare yourself. I do blame the media, okay. I'm thankful for the shows like The Voice where, you know, they select people based on their sound rather than how they look. And I'm thankful for shows like America's Got Talent. American Idol? Hmm, not so much. Never really been a fan. You're just picking up pop icons that are gonna eventually write other people's music. I did watch the first season. And, you know, kudos to Kelly Clarkson. She always wrote her own music. I think eventually she had some help. But she always, you know, was a part of writing her own music. And, but, I don't know. The whole American Idol thing, it's not my thing. But anyways, one, I just, singing's great. But I like more of a rock. I like more variety. I like people that can perform. That's why I like America's Got Talent. That's my favorite one of those. But I respect these shows. But on the other hand, as things progress and as they keep looking for better and better and better, the rest of us down here on the ground, the rest of us that are not up in that, you know, that area of being picked for a national TV show, it makes us doubt ourselves because you see how great those people are. But listen, there's a long way before they got there. I mean, yeah, I know you see these kids and they're just, you know, instantly talented, but you don't know who those kids' parents are. You don't know what their parents do for a living. They could be music teachers. This kid could have started being taught music since they were, you know, two years old. And now they're 12 winning a national competition. I mean, that's 10 years experience. You know, a lot can happen in that 10 years. And that's where that confidence starts to grow is the 10 years ago when you start putting in the work and you start getting your feet wet and you start gaining a little ground. That's when you gain the confidence. So don't shy away from getting on stage because you don't believe you can do this or you can't live up to America and the idol or, you know, someone else in your town is better than you. You can't shy away from it because how do you think they got there? They certainly didn't sit on the couch and watch television. They jumped. And eventually, you're just going to have to close your eyes and jump. Because this thing, this thing you have inside you, you're not going to be able to leave it. Like, it's not going to disappear. That need to be on stage, that need to follow your passion and follow your dreams, that ain't going anywhere. You're going to have to do something about it. For starters, you know, you could get some personalized help, personal plan, plan out what you want to do and, you know, figure out how you can gain that confidence. I can help. Jump on my calendar. You can, that's what other people do. They jump on my calendar and we chat for 30 minutes-ish, usually goes over. And they have a plan. They're ready to go. That's that. They're off. Now, whether or not you do that, that's up to you. But hop on. You know, beingonstage.com slash calendar, it's up. It's ready to go. Just pick a date and time. We'll call you. That's how you get help. It's that simple. You take. You take one step and you put it, or you take one foot and you put it in front of another. Let me help you take that step. Or, you know what? Take a couple of steps yourself and then let's chat and see, talk about how it went. Either way, I'm cool. But you got to take that step. You got to. And listen, this isn't just for people that are, you know, new or never been on stage before. This can happen at any stage of your career. At any moment, your confidence. Your confidence level could just drop or just not be there. Or maybe you're just not confident enough to take the next step. And listen, I've been that person. I've been that person that I wasn't really confident enough to take the next step. But I was a cocky you-know-what. I mean, I was cocky. I thought everybody owed me something. And I've told you this story before, but I'll repeat it. It's kind of, oh, it's embarrassing. It's not really a story. It's more of a statement. I was. I was like that guy, that performer, that when I would walk into a venue, I would head straight to the bar and I would say hi to the bartender and I would say hi to the owner of the establishment and I would say hi to, like, the show director. And then I would just, like, grab my drink and do this whole, like, elbows on the bar but facing out into the club. And I would just wait. I would just sit there and wait for people to come say hi to me. It was like a high almost. Like, it's crazy to say. I would just have a beer and I would just sit there and just kind of like, yep, Reggie's here. You may approach. That was who I was. Like, I was that guy. And let me tell you, it doesn't fill any voids. It doesn't get you anywhere. People actually eventually are going to stop coming up to you because they realize how disgusting that is. And you're still going to be sitting there sipping on a drink except now you're going to look like the guy. That just sits at a bar and stares out into the club and doesn't know anybody because that's where I became. Like, if I go there now, I could do that from, like, 9 p.m. till 2 a.m. and, like, no one will talk to me because I was that guy. I mean, it's been a while since I've been out. I'm kind of removed from that situation and that lifestyle. But still, the point remains. The fact remains. That still happened. That's when you cross that line between confidence cockiness and the truth is in that moment of my my life my career I was stagnant because I didn't believe that I could do any better I believe that this was it and that's a dangerous belief that's a dangerous thought process to believe that this is as good as it gets and this is as far as I'm gonna go and this is my this is the height of my career that's a dangerous thought because at that moment you've already decided that there's nowhere to go but down yeah I said it at that moment when you think that that's the height of your career you've made the decision that you are now going to start going down into that downward spiral until you eventually retire or you know or you just or you know whatever uh well we never truly retire we may change our focus we may change our field we may back off for a while and go at it later on but we never truly retire sometimes we start a podcast and help other performers do what they love to do and follow their dreams and avoid the mistakes that you made but hey who's judging you're not judging me right I'm not judging you we're all here together trying to make our dreams happen right but listen that that thought process when you've when you made that decision that you're gonna you're gonna start failing and you're gonna start that downward spiral you gotta avoid that you're gonna start failing and you're gonna start that downward spiral you that's a belief thing too you gotta believe that there's always gonna be more there's always more work to do there's always more opportunities that are gonna come your way and you have to even after you've been doing it for a while and you think this is the height of your career you have to still believe there's more because then you're gonna just stop and you gotta keep progressing you have to keep progressing it's a part of you it's in you you may have some difficult decisions ahead of you that you need to face but you gotta face them that's it boom yes you're gonna have failures yes you're gonna fall on your face yes you're gonna have nights where people don't like you people already don't like you you're just gonna have to get over that you got this you're a rock star that's why you clicked on this podcast and I'm here for you hit me up reggie at being on stage.com I'll chat I don't know email I'll call you I mean technically I could also text you anyways I'm gonna wrap this up and I'll see you next time on the rock star podcast I'm gonna wrap this bad boy up and leave it like this keep on shining
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