Cultivating Your Outgoing Personality in New Work Environments

Jessika Anspach & me (as Puck) getting ready for A Midsummer Night's Dream at PNB

Dancer's personalities come in all shapes and forms. While most dancers have some degree of an outgoing personality onstage, it doesn't always equate to the same thing offstage. As a freelancer, you are constantly thrust into new situations where you may have to step out of your comfort zone, especially when interacting with people. Many times this means that you are entering a new environment every few weeks. With new work situations come new relationships, which also means you will need to reveal your true self more quickly than you would with a full-time position. This is necessary to make a personal connection and more memorable impact. If you don't have a naturally outgoing disposition or struggle with opening up quickly, how does one make this lifestyle of eternal transition and never-ending relationship cultivation comfortable?

I've always been pretty lucky that I was practically born with a knack for interacting with people. As I have gotten older, I have honed this in to a slight degree. But for the most part, I am genuinely interested in getting to know new acquaintances and have developed skills to make a memorable impression quickly. As I've gotten older, though, I find that I tend to shy up the first few days of a new gig as I assess the circumstances that I am entering.

Performing in my work "Gated Lies" (Photo: Bill Hebert)

When I first started tightening up, it caught me off guard. Somebody would talk to me and all of a sudden I would be stumbling over my words. Or everybody would be cracking jokes in the studio and I'd be quietly sitting in the group laughing like a lady in an old-school etiquette class. When I have noticed that I am shying up, I've found that there are a few techniques I can use to let my true outgoing personality come out.

When I'm feeling particularly shy, the first thing that locks up is my voice. Either my relentless stream of words stop flowing out of my mouth (I am infamous for my ability to fill dead air) or I can't seem to raise the volume of my voice. I'm not positive of the reasoning behind this, but my assumptions fall in the range of being afraid to overstep the unique social boundaries of my new workplace through to being consumed by my assessment of the multitude of new people and situations surrounding me. What ends up happening is that I can't seem to tie one string of thoughts together from the five floating around in my head.

Essentially, what it comes down to is that I am likely experiencing sensory overload. I think this happens with many people who have issues with an unwanted stifling of their personality in new environments. In these situations, I will try to eliminate some of the noise in my head and focus on one thing at a time. Or I try to remind myself that every workplace has a particular social order. In entering that new environment, I can't walk on eggshells in fear that I may overstep my boundaries. I rarely do break workplace culture. And when I have actually done so, people are very understanding and forgiving as long as I learned quickly and was genuine in my error.

Another time when I have felt myself pulling back has been when there is another dancer in the room with a larger-than-life personality. This is the type of dancer that cracks all of the really funny jokes or who always needs to be the center of attention. When this happens, I'd rather let that person take control than duke it out for the social spotlight. In reality, I'm only successful at being funny about 10% of the time (depending on your humor) and I feel people appreciate me for many of my other qualities. So, when I find my outgoing self being stifled by one of these personalities, I tend to step into the shadows and enjoy the show or move on to a quieter place to focus on the many tasks that I probably have in my new environment. Essentially, if you find yourself in a similar situation, you need to choose whether to be a part of the act, a part of the audience, or to pass your ticket to someone else and skip out on the show.

Me stress? Never! (w/Elizel Long - Photo: Gutierrez Photography)

One of the most stressful parts of revealing your personality at a new gig can often be that you need to be on at all times. Unless you are in a hotel room by yourself, you have to be on in the studio, in the dressing room, in your host family's house, or with your roommate. It doesn't matter how outgoing you are, if you don't have some quiet time to yourself, you will likely find your personality shutting down when you least expect it. To combat this, I will take some quiet time to myself. In order to avoid situations where I am resting and somebody unintentionally interrupts my moment , I tend to find myself eating lunch, dinner, or sitting at a coffee shop all by my lonesome. When I take some me time, while I'm not in the comfort of my own home or at a regular workplace, I get a better sense of self returning back to me.

I don't always find that I lose certain aspects of being outgoing from gig to gig. But it can be stressful to watch your true self be stifled and take a back seat when there are tons of artistic personalities oozing out of each person in the room. While this isn't always true, I do find that directors tend to have a magnetic attraction to dancers who can hold the attention of an entire studio with a smile, wink, or laugh. It can be stressful entering new work environments regularly. And nobody needs the additional worry of fading into the background or appearing uninteresting or disingenuous. Making a memorable impression is important because you want to stay on employers radars for future work and opportunities. If you find yourself feeling or acting shy, stop thinking so much, show people you are generally interested in their particular environment, and take some time for yourself to rest and recharge your social battery.

Create Your Own Blog

Writing this blog

When I started this blog a little over two years ago, I had little idea that it would become a great platform for me to share, educate, and speak out about issues while on the journey of my dance career. In fact, I only really started this blog because I was scared shitless about finding my own work. I knew that I had writing skills and a unique perspective. But I saw blogging more as a personal journal that could potentially be used as a marketing tool instead of a platform for sharing my experiences, thoughts on dance politics, or a handbook for independent contractors of all professions. Yesterday, Life of a Freelance Dancer reached over 50,000 views. And as it approaches 100 posts (this will be #99), I have decided to share some of my secrets about creating a blog and how to write compelling posts that draw your audience into your unique world.

I don't know if it's our age or more of a popular trend within the ballet world, but I have had a great many friends mention to me that they want to start freelancing. Since I started a blog that is unique and contains material that has generally been untouched in the past, I get a lot of people reaching out to me about working as an independent contractor. During a handful of these conversations, more than a few of these dancers have told me that they are considering starting their own blog. They see that I have been successful with it and figure, "If he can do it, I can do it." The problem I often find, though, is that not much more thought has gone into something that can be a monumental task.

The first thing I do when somebody mentions that they are going to start a blog is ask questions. I always begin with, "What is your niche?" The obvious answer for us is dance. But is that enough to be compelling? There are many styles of dance, different types of dancers, and a multitude of tracks that somebody can be on throughout their career. The first thing that a potential blogger needs to think about is finding their niche. This special place one hopes to hold in the blogosphere needs to be one topic in which the blogger has endless knowledge and exponential passion. It may seem like an easy task to sit down and write about a subject here and there, but it is absolutely impossible to maintain one's writings over an extended period of time if the topic doesn't mean the world to you. This is the ultimate reason that most bloggers fizzle out within the first month or two of writing.

Once a writer chooses their niche, they need to take other things into consideration. How often do you plan on blogging? If a blogger plans to write whenever they feel inspired, they are not going to be able to maintain an audience. Even things that people are most passionate about usually swing up and down on the scale of inspiration. When I started LOFD, my plan was always to write one blog post per week. I didn't know if this was feasible, but it seemed often enough to keep people coming back to check in and infrequent enough to keep me from burning out. Two years later, the longest I've gone without writing has been two weeks. And while I wasn't posting during that period, it wasn't because I was uninspired. It was because I was too busy rehearsing or performing to sit down and create content. It is extremely important to post with regularity, as it will help you to maintain your audience. And, believe it or not, if nobody is reading your blog, you are that much less likely to continue writing.

Now that you have considered your niche and time management, why would somebody want to read your blog. Just writing about a specific area of expertise doesn't mean that everybody who has interest in that topic will read what you have written. I have heard people tell me, I'm going to write about me doing this and my review of that and my experience with this and my thoughts on that. My response can come off pretty offensively, but it is one of the most important things to consider. What makes you so interesting? So, you are a ballerina that likes fine dining. Or you have a special knack for knitting leg warmers. But just because you are passionate about something and you shared it on a public platform doesn't make you or your writing interesting. What makes a writer compelling is finding their own unique voice. When you talk to somebody in person, you can hear their vocal inflection as they speak. But reading a smattering of letters jumbled together on a blog with pretty colors in the background and IPhone photos in the foreground does not draw an audience into a story. Creating a unique writing style within your own content will make one far more interesting. Beyond the way that I phrase my posts, I am known to be too openly honest for most of today's common social standards. But the combination of these two things give me a unique voice that makes my writings stand out in ways that others may not. The tendency is for people to watch somebody do something successfully and to attempt to become successful by copying how that person garnered their success. This rarely works. Find what is unique about you, put yourself out there, and people will read what you have to say.

At this point you've created your blog, so the next step is to write your first post. What are you going to write about and how many topics have you already compiled? Most first-time bloggers think that they are going to come up with all of their topics on the fly as they find inspiration. Some people can do this. But for most of us bloggers, we need to compile a list of possible topics for the future. I generally write about what I am experiencing or inspired by in the moment. But as I stated above, you don't always feel equally inspired to write. How are you supposed to write when you don't feel any motivation and it has been days since you last planned on posting? Nothing can destroy your drive to blog more than writing a handful of forced entries. Not only do these posts take too much energy to write, but they often come off as uninspired to readers. And as for maintaining readers with humdrum content, you can think of it like this. If you go to a restaurant once and the food is bad or the service was poor, how likely are you to return to that restaurant? Unless you have already pulled in a loyal following of readers, this can force people to stay away from your content before they even get to the entree. I always have a list of, at least, ten blog topics that I could write about if I can't think of any other subjects. I have gotten to the point where I rarely need to touch that list. But every once in awhile, I'm too busy to be imaginative or in too little of a writing mood to conjure up a new topic.

When trying to summon new material to write about, I find that I write best when I am inspired. What inspires you? I can be inspired by something that I have experienced at a gig, a conversation with a friend about dance politics, or even a random person walking down the street having a conversation with a fire hydrant. I find that when I am truly inspired by a topic, I can write a blog in a wildly short period of time. If I'm less inspired, the task is more tedious and takes a lot more effort. Keep in mind that inspiration doesn't always have to be positive. But, if you are inspired and passionate about something, people will be more likely to enjoy your content. How many times have you seen a street performer present an act skillfully with passion and stood in the street smiling to yourself. If you can write passionately inspired posts, people will respond the same way. And they will come back for more. Who doesn't feel good when they are pursuing something that they feel passionate about?

The main reason that bloggers continue posting in a public forum is because they want people to read their content. If you post and don't tell anybody about your writing, nobody will know it exists. Most people figure that they will simply post their blogs on their Facebook or Twitter. And they think that all of their friends will read what they write and then their friends will share with their friends and their blog will become famous. It unfortunately doesn't work like that. The more you sell your blog in your own social media feed, the more likely your friends are to get annoyed with you. I do post every blog on my accounts, but I don't post about it much more than that. When I first started blogging, I oversold myself to my friends and I instantly saw fewer comments, less likes, and some even deleted me. Using social media successfully is a delicate balance of posting enough, not posting too much, and delivering interesting content that isn't too sad or self-indulged. The best way I find to draw in readers is a combination of social media and Search Engine Optimization (or SEO).

One of my recent Twitter posts

For social media, I always post a link to my most recent blog on Facebook, Twitter, and Pinterest, typically with a quote from my writing. On Twitter, I always make sure that I use hashtags for #dance, #ballet, #freelance, and/or #blog. This allows people that are interested in these topics to find my tweet, even if they don't follow me. Beyond that, I have each individual post linked on a separate LOFD fan page on facebook and on a board in Pinterest. The way my blog is set up, you can only see the most recent post at the top of the page. Most of my other posts are hidden on the sidebar or on other pages of my blog. Since I have spent so much time writing each post, I don't want them to disappear into the blogosphere only to be found when somebody searches a specific topic. On Pinterest, each blog post is pinned to the board like a post it. This makes it easy to scroll through individual pieces versus scrolling through entire pages of writing.

As for Search Engine Optimization, this is where things get a little trickier. I am still on a bit of a learning curve when it comes to SEO. But using blogger, I have a few tricks that I use to increase traffic to my website. SEO is essentially creating pathways to have search engines, like Google and Bing, move your site closer to the top when somebody searches a topic that may relate to your blog. In my posts, I try to find ways to insert links to articles and businesses that are related to my writings. Make sure that you are being honest to your writing with these links. Don't add a random link that has no relation to your work because it is popular. But adding links to other searchable subjects may have your blog showing up when somebody searches for a place, like the School of American Ballet. Also, be sure to add labels/keywords after you have finished your post. In Blogger, there is a sidebar with post settings that allows you to add labels to your content. During my editing process, I search for words in my writing that really stand out as important to the post or names/subjects that are highly searched. For instance, if I wrote a post that included a story about working with Christopher Wheeldon, I am surely going to include him in that list. The more searchable your blog is, the more likely you are to gather readers. And the higher the viewership, the longer the life of your blog.

At the end of the day, you may ask me why I spend so much time sitting at my computer having a conversation with my keyboard? I never thought of myself as a writer until recently. Obviously, the excitement of seeing the number of views on my content tick higher and higher contribute to my long stream of writings. But the reason that I continue blogging from week to week is because it gives me a platform to express my thoughts, views, and explorations to people that I don't even know. I can help somebody I've never met learn how to get a job or cope with shitty conditions in their workplace. I always tell people that criticize me for sharing so much about my personal and not-so-personal life online this. There are so many times in life that we feel alone, like we are experiencing something all by ourselves. Those of us that have a platform to share MUST do so for those people. At some point, somebody has experienced what I have along my journey through my career and life.  Sometimes, though, they don't realize that they weren't the only one to have ever experienced it. If putting a little too much of myself out there helps somebody else in their time of need, I'm more than happy to help. With all of this said, if you've got it in you, GET STARTED WRITING!

Don't be afraid to express yourself