A Sneak Peek into 'My Best Stripper Self'
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I wrote a book!
**This post is an excerpt of my new book; My Best Stripper Self, The Power of Patterns: Identifying and Utilizing What Works. Specifically, it is the introduction. My Best Stripper Self is a sales book for Adult Entertainers designed to enhance their experience in clubs, and create longevity in their careers. Click here to order the book in its entirety.
MY BEST STRIPPER SELF is a sales course for Strippers featuring real-world examples, self-guided exercises, and cohesive diagrams. Suitable for intermediate to veteran Entertainers. Written by a Strip Club Veteran with over a decade in the industry, 'My Best Stripper Self' dives into the importance of how tracking patterns leads to repeating the ones that work, and changing the ones that don't. Written in an approachable, yet inspiring tone that encourages self-reflection, My Best Stripper Self highlights situations and experiences that are familiar to intermediate and veteran Entertainers alike. My Best Stripper Self focuses on sustainability and longevity in a high-paced sales environment. Complete with examples of behavioral practices, financial tracking charts, and the why behind their purpose.
READ THE INTRODUCTION:
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When I first started dancing in clubs, it was out of necessity. I was in college, and there just weren’t enough hours in the day for a full time class schedule, and a full time job. There also weren’t enough dollars to be earned with a part-time job to support my college-lifestyle. I tried a handful of side gigs, and those just burned me out. I started stripping my senior year of college. I was very much excited by the ‘taboo-ness’ of it, and for a girl who was a bit of a wild child to begin with, I loved this idea of being paid to be topless and admired. I thought my BFA in Ballet would be an advantage, but I quickly learned dancing was not even a requirement for the job. I still remember my first time on stage- the air conditioning made my nipples hard and I thought “wow, I’m naked and people are looking at me! This is different!” That first night, I went home with $256 and I cried tears of joy and relief. I felt like I earned that money for doing ‘nothing’. It felt so much easier than any other work I did, and most importantly, I was having FUN. I loved stripping, it was my little secret for a while, and even though I *thought* I was making a lot of money, I wasn’t. Perhaps it’s my Virgo moon, but I love receipts. I always kept immaculate records of how much I earned, and if I made $256 in a shift today, I would be thoroughly upset. But that’s not to diminish how I felt then. I thought I was one of the highest earners in my club, and while that is absolutely untrue, that attitude helped me a lot.
The combined skills from my college courses of knowing how to audition, paired with the overwhelming confidence that dancing naked developed, my Leo Rising was in its element. With wild abandon, I leaned into the performance aspect of the job, participating in every contest the club hosted. I found myself hired for aerial gigs outside of the club, yet I didn’t get the same rush as I did of being able to ask someone to pay me the moment I felt it was deserved.
If you know me, you also know about my history with reality television, and I truly credit my success there to my background in clubs and the skills I gained in college. Being a stripper- I knew how to be unforgettable and attention grabbing- both skills that any producer would enjoy. Where I failed, and thus abandoned myself, was when I took the audition skill ‘say yes until you mean no’ too literally. I recognized the patterns in reality tv, and understood how to play a part while delivering a performance that was for the most part, within my boundaries. I wish I had been more outwardly proud of my time as a stripper than I was, and I know there’s nothing I can do about that now. I will say though, that I was afraid. Afraid of the reaction from my family, and community, and afraid of the alienation I might receive because of it. In abandoning myself, I made myself susceptible to some very toxic and abusive relationships, and an overwhelming amount of internet bullying and trolling- which I still experience to this day.
The cyber-bullying did not keep me from dancing in clubs. If anything, I felt safer in clubs because I got to be a fantasy girl, where no one knew my real name and even those who did, knew better than to bring it up inside the club or to the customers. Stripper code. I did start a corporate job, which was not something in alignment with my core needs and values, but I did come out of it with some good sales training that has proven to be helpful in Stripperland. Now, without turning this into an auto-biography, but more to set the foundation of how I learned these skills I’m about to share with you- I did find myself in a financially abusive relationship, and I did find myself depending on alcohol in order to show up as ‘my best stripper self’- which let’s be real, wasn’t. I forgive myself for that, and while it took awhile to recognize that pattern, I did something that is probably the most important skill you can learn from this course: I recognized a pattern, and I chose to change it. I got divorced, I gave up alcohol, and I participated in a lot of therapy.
That part of me that loves receipts is the same part of me that loved therapy. That hyper-analytical part of me just wanted to dissect everything and understand it on a better level. I enrolled in a program called Dialectical Behavioral Therapy- or DBT- which taught me that recognizing a pattern is the fastest way to change it. I also learned the importance of tracking my patterns through journaling, and skills which developed my interpersonal effectiveness ie: getting what you want.
I didn’t learn these skills to become a better stripper. I learned these skills to become a better person, which in turn, made me into a better stripper. When I started journaling more, I was able to recognize patterns that I could then choose to repeat or change. I had always tracked my earnings from work, but now I was digging a little more into them, identifying what about that shift went well, or what about that interaction was a red flag. I started developing my own statistics and analytics without really noticing that’s what I was doing.
I recognized that I was able to be more in control of the outcome of my shifts, and that my earnings became more stable and predictable. I still very much loved the dancing and stage aspect of the job, but I found that I was becoming incredibly good at all the parts of this industry that weren’t tangible- like conversation and active listening. Identifying these patterns within myself is not something someone else could have done for me. What I am sharing in this course is my best representation of how you can apply these skills to your own practices. Everyone’s results will be different. Some people might even tell me I’m full of shit, and you know what- that’s okay.
I have heard the story over and over that, “We went to the strip club and spent a lot of money“ and it goes one of two ways- it’s either; “We went to the strip club and spent a lot of money and it was awful” -or- “We went to the strip club, spent a lot of money, and it was awesome.” I want to be the awesome, and this is the result of how I figured out how to be, by showing up as My Best Stripper Self.
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I'll be sharing more about my experience with writing this book, which honestly could be a book in itself.
**Click Here to order your copy of My Best Stripper Self, and see what other Strippers are saying...
xo,c