25. Have Faith, Take Action

Here we talk about everything Grief , hope , illness , work , family tragedy , possibilities , fun stuff and not so fun stuff . It's all on the table . Let's take a look at our lives and work to Heal Grow together . I'm so glad you're here . So right after Paul and I were married , we joined a gym for like two months , three months . It was very short .

We were doing some type of 90 day challenge and we didn't have to work out at that gym , but we did have to belong in order to do this 90 day challenge . And we walk in and there's this wall and painted on it it says have faith , take action , have faith , take action . I thought it was pretty weird . Really .

I thought are we in some type of like religious gym ? Is this a Christian gym ? I don't even really know what that would mean , but I thought that maybe we were in some type of just different gym , which was fine , but I just wanted to know if that we belonged to a different type of gym and anyway .

That has nothing to do with the story , really , other than the fact that I was like what's going on ? And in the immediate days I couldn't really stop thinking about it . Have faith , take action . And when I say faith , I don't necessarily mean a Christian or religious faith . What I mean when I say it is confidence in someone or something .

So have faith and take action . It was kind of blowing my mind because I realized that throughout my life I had never done both of these things at the same time . I had only done one or the other . So I'm going to use my theater life to illustrate how this has been working , or actually hasn't been working , in my life .

So I would have faith , I'm going to get this job . I will visualize myself on stage , what it feels like to be on stage under the lights , in the costume , singing the songs , doing all the dances . I would just sit there and do nothing , but imagine my success . Or I would just take action . So I would learn new music or learn monologues .

But my self-talk was horrible . I would say things like I'm never gonna get this role and so and so is much more talented than me . Why am I even doing this ? And I have a silly story to share with you that sort of illustrates my point and kind of doesn't illustrate my point , but I also feel like this is the time to share the story with you .

I've shared it to many friends , but now I'm gonna share it with the world . So I was auditioning for Beauty and the Beast at the Chan Hassan Dinners Theater like 20 some years ago and back then .

I'm not sure if it's the same way now , but back then , if you knew that there was a role that you wanted , you were encouraged to sort of dress up like that character and audition in character . And when I looked at the script for Beauty and the Beast I thought you know , there's really no part for me here , except maybe a silly girl .

But I'm already pretty sure I know who's gonna be cast in that role , in those roles , so I'm not gonna go for that . So I decided to dress up like an enchanted object you know the ones that comes to life during the song Be Our Guest and I had some time and energy to put into this , but not a lot , so I couldn't do anything very ordinate .

So I decided to make myself a stove costume out of a big box that I had and I wrapped this box in white butcher paper and on the top of the box I put the burners .

So I drew like a black burner as if that burner was off , and then I drew a red burner as if that burner was on , and on the red burner I taped a saucepan and I also taped a timer and on the front of the box I took my actual handle from my real oven and I taped it on there .

And I took the knobs off of my real oven and taped them on the front of the box and then I put a picture like of a clip art cooked chicken on the front of it to make it look like I was cooking a chicken . And I decided to sing the song I Can Cook To .

I can't remember what it's from , maybe like On the Town or something like that , but it goes . I can cook to , on top of the rest , my seafood's the best in town . So I thought , oh , this will be a great song to sing because it's like from the point of view of the oven .

But I spent so much time working on this oven stove costume that I forgot to memorize my lyrics , which is a huge no-no . You don't go into an audition and have your lyrics in front of you . But I decided to cheat a little bit and I wrote the lyrics on a recipe card and then on the back of the card it said chicken recipes .

So that's the people that were watching me audition would know oh , that's a chicken recipe . Well , obviously I was reading my lyrics . Well , I got so nervous because I was so unprepared for the actual audition that I messed the entire thing up . It wasn't cute , it wasn't adorable , it was a hot , hot mess and I did not book that gig .

I did not book that gig and I have a picture around here somewhere of me in that costume , so I will try to find it and share it on social media . But at any rate , that could potentially be an example of me taking action , but not Like . I took a lot of action , but I also didn't take the right action .

I could have just shown up as myself and sung a song and had a much better chance at landing that gig .

So , at any rate , up until sort of recently , I didn't have faith and take action , I only did one or the other , and once I put two and two together or rather , once I remembered to put two and two together it felt like and it feels like I'm sort of unstoppable and the ways that that has shown up in my theater life .

The dinner theater was doing a remount of Sister Act . When I saw it the first time , I was like , oh my gosh , I don't wanna be in this show .

I had heard that almost the entire original cast was coming back , except for a couple of people , and so I sent an email to the design team , which is not something that I've ever done before , and I just said I'm very interested in doing this show . If you have a spot for me , I'm happy to come in and audition for you .

Let me know what you need , and they ended up just casting me . I didn't have to audition . Another example is I was auditioning for Mamma Mia at the Dinner Theatre , and a role that I've always wanted is the role of Rosie .

She's the one that sayings take a chance on me , and I knew that I was not going to land that job just because there was at least one other person that I knew that would be perfect for it .

But I did my due diligence and I did my homework and I walked in and I nailed my Mamma Mia audition and I ended up getting the understudy for Rosie , which I was really really happy about . And it's because I have faith and I took action . You've heard me talk about my new job .

Last year or , excuse me , last week I talked about how there's just been a lot of hiccups , but I have faith that the remaining team is going to do really really well for the rest of the season and I'm also taking action . I'm not just having faith , I'm taking action . I'm making sure that my work is done .

When I'm unclear as to whether other people have their work done or not , I just ask them . I'm being tactfully direct . And now , with reinventing myself as a speaker , podcast and author , I do a ton of visualization because I think that it's helpful . I have a lot of faith in myself , but I can't be quiet about that faith . I have to take action .

With that faith , I have to tell the world this is what I do for a living . I am a speaker , I am a podcaster , I am an author and I have to market myself as such and I can't just hide like I'm really good at . I can't just hide and hope that the work's going to come to me . The work's not going to come to me if people don't know who I am .

And so I'm trying really , really hard to get myself out there by having faith and taking action , doing both at the same time . And so now I want to ask you are you doing both , or are you doing one or the other ? No shame in whatever . Your answer is right . What it is is what it is . It is what it is . I don't remember what that saying is .

I think it's , it is what it is . But after taking stock , if you realize , oh , wait a second , I'm only having faith or I'm only taking action , or perhaps , then I'm wondering how you might be able to reframe that so that you can do both . And if you need an accountability partner , I volunteer as tribute .

Send me an email at healandgrowluniqueapodcastedtoemailcom and I will help you out as best as I can . How are you able to help out the people around you who maybe aren't having any faith at all ?

What that sounds like to me is people doing a lot of complaining about how things are unfair , or they're getting the short end of the stick or they're talking down about other people . That's what not having faith sounds like to me .

That's what I'm listening for , and not taking action is actually pretty easy to see or to hear , because you know they're just not taking action . So how can you help other people in your life ? By having faith and taking action . It's just a great thing to think about this week as you go throughout your week .

Just maybe do a little reflecting on what's working and what's not working , and could the saying have faith , take action be helpful to you at all ? Something to think about . If you know someone who needs a speaker for their ladies night or their book club or their church or their women in business seminar , please reach out to me .

I would love , love , love to help you and help them out .

If you know someone that's looking for an easy , quick read and who might need some help processing grief , might I offer up my book Things I'm Thinking About A Daughter's Thoughts on the Loss of Her Mom . It's linked in the show notes . I'll also link in the show notes my new winter support group . It just started a few days ago .

You are welcome to join at any time . It's just for those of us who need a little bit of extra support throughout the winter months because we are feeling challenged by the lack of light , we're feeling challenged by our seasonal affective disorder or our winter depression .

I'll link that in the show notes as well , but you can find that at Healing Grow with Nikki Winter Support Group . And don't forget , I'm having a one time only , I think book club . It'll be in January . Once I have all of the details I will market that a little bit more . But we are reading Quit Like a Woman by Holly Whitaker .

You do not need to be sober . You do not need to be trying to get sober . Maybe you're just curious about what alcohol does to our bodies and minds . I'd love to have you in that January book club that I will know more about very , very soon . I hope you're having a great week and , as always , thank you so much for healing and growing with me .

Mwah Mwah .