Strap in for an adventure on the tightrope of faith and action. You will hear me recount an amusing episode from my theater life, where I crafted an audacious costume and belted out a song with lyrics on a recipe card, all in an attempt to bag a role. This anecdote serves as a stepping stone on my journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and it offers a real-life lesson on the fundamental balance between faith and action.
Strap in for an adventure on the tightrope of faith and action. You will hear me recount an amusing episode from my theater life, where I crafted an audacious costume and belted out a song with lyrics on a recipe card, all in an attempt to bag a role. This anecdote serves as a stepping stone on my journey of self-discovery and reinvention, and it offers a real-life lesson on the fundamental balance between faith and action.
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Speaker 1:
Hi everyone. Today's podcast is all about how I went to the gym and it changed my life. But first I'd like to thank Elise for buying me a coffee this week. I really appreciate your support, Elise. It means so much that my podcast resonated with you. Welcome to Heal Grow with Nikki. I'm your host, Nikki Kraminga Hill. 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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.
Speaker 1:
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.