The Confidence Shortcut with Niki Sterner

#2: From Health Crisis to Creative Breakthrough

• Niki Sterner • Season 1 • Episode 2

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Niki Sterner shares her personal journey from feeling stuck and uncertain to finding true confidence through action rather than endless preparation. After years of playing small despite extensive training, she discovered that the key obstacle wasn't external factors but her mindset.

• Suffered from a health crisis caused by breast implants and mold exposure that created a limbic system injury
• Discovered Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) which helped rewire her brain from danger-scanning to joy-seeking
• Found clarity by identifying her true desires and developing a 20-year vision that she reverse-engineered
• Realized the power of shifting from victim mentality to creator mentality
• Learned that confidence comes after taking action, not before it
• Gained her voice through consistent practice, including comedy writing and performance
• Transformed her relationship with fear by reframing it as part of the creative process

Ready to take the next step? Check out my free guide, the Confidence Kickstart, linked below. Keep showing up, keep taking action and remember the shortcut to confidence is courage.


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🧠 Click to learn more about the Dynamic Neural Retraining System (DNRS) and how it helps rewire your brain for healing.

Niki Sterner:

Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut, the podcast for ambitious creatives and entrepreneurs who are ready to stop overthinking, take bold action and finally step into the life they've been dreaming about.

Niki Sterner:

I'm your host, Niki Sterner mom, actor, comedian and producer. After years of playing small and waiting to feel ready, I went on a courage quest and found a shortcut to confidence. Each week, I'll bring you real stories, simple steps and conversations with experts. In mindset, courage and confidence, plus heart-to-hearts with fellow creatives who are turning their dreams into reality. It's time to get unstuck and start showing up. Let's dive in.

Niki Sterner:

Welcome to the Confidence Shortcut Podcast. I'm Niki Sterner and I'm so excited. Today we are recording the first five foundational episodes with my friend, my good friend, Micah Caldwell, who is a talented voice actor, comedian she's hilarious and a podcast producer. She's here as my friend, to be my conversation partner today, but she's also going to be a guest in season one, based on what I know about her journey, which includes a significant career transition from practicing law in Washington DC to relocating to Atlanta to pursue a more creative career path, more fun. You're going to love her, just like I do. Every Tuesday, we're going to drop conversations with experts and creatives, just like Micah, who are on a similar journey to finding confidence, so I want to welcome my friend Micah Caldwell.

Micah Caldwell:

I'm so glad to be here. Thank you for asking me to do this with you. I'm excited, so the reason I'm here today is so your listeners can get to know you before you share so much information from all these other experts and resources about your journey and how you came to create this podcast and what you hope that listeners will get out of it. I'm really excited for them to learn more about you and what you're trying to do here and the amazing things that you're going to bring to listeners that tune in. So very excited to be helping let's get to know Nikki. So, first and foremost, let's start with a quick snapshot. Why don't you tell your listeners about who you are, what you do with a quick snapshot? Why don't you tell your listeners about who you are, what you do?

Niki Sterner:

and what you're passionate about. So I'm a mom and a wife. I have three kids. They're teenagers. I am super excited to be doing this podcast because over the past year, I have figured out a way to actually take action on what I've been wanting to do for the past 25 years.

Niki Sterner:

For a really long time I knew I wanted to be performing on stage, on screen, but I just wasn't confident in using my voice. I took a bunch of classes. For the past 11 years I've been studying, acting and just gathering knowledge and I just didn't have the confidence to actually do what I wanted to do. And a couple of years ago, two and a half years ago, I took my first standup comedy class. I was just graduating a two-year Meisner conservatory program, which I took because I was like you know, this will give me confidence for sure. And I graduated there. And then I did my standup comedy and I just didn't feel confident still, like nothing changed for me. Still like nothing changed for me. And so I was so sad about that. I was like is it me? Like what is wrong with me? I've done all the things. Why am I still not feeling confident? Like I feel like I had checked all the boxes, classes, headshots, you know all the prep, but the one thing that I hadn't changed was my mindset, and that was a huge piece for me. That was the first thing that had to change on my path, and so I wanted to share that today.

Niki Sterner:

I got to a point where I felt really low because of my inability to take action. I felt stuck. I felt like I had created this place where I was not doing what I said I was going to do. I was embarrassed that I wasn't further along in my career and I had also had a health crisis along the way. I had breast implants for like 12 years and the chemicals in those had created this thing called multiple chemical sensitivity in my body, where if I smell perfumes or colognes or candles or anything like that, where if I smell perfumes or colognes or candles or anything like that, it would set off a headache and I would get very tired like chronic fatigue. We also were living in a home that was built on a crawl space and it had some air ducts in the crawl space that were unattached. We didn't know it, so we were breathing in this crawl space air that had a musty, moldy thing going on, and so the combination of the chemicals in the breast implants and the mold exposure just tanked my health. I didn't realize it at the time, but it was creating this limbic system injury in my brain. And so, fast forward, I got my breast implants out. We moved into a different place, fast forward a few years and I still felt stuck and like I couldn't overcome this multiple chemical sensitivity.

Niki Sterner:

I was going on acting sets. I had graduated. I was stuck in this fear like that every time I would go on set I would get sick, and I was like I've spent eight years studying classes, wasted all this money and I'm not going to be able to do this, and I got really depressed. It was extremely sad and I told my acting coach I can't continue on class with you and she was shocked. She was like what do you mean? What's going on? And so after class she asked me about it and I explained the health crisis and she said, oh my gosh, have you prayed for a miracle? And I was like, seriously, that's what this is about. But she was like, no, I had my own health crisis and whatever she had gone through totally cleared up when she prayed for a miracle and somehow she's like this one in a million person who they study her blood because it's so clear, and no one else has had that happen. And so I was like, okay, I'm definitely going to pray for my miracle, which sounds crazy, like sure you're going to have a miracle, right? So I did, and nothing happened. And then I got frustrated.

Niki Sterner:

I went on set and I had another exposure and I came home that night and I just went on my computer and I Google searched how do you heal multiple chemical sensitivity and this thing popped up on my screen called DNRS and it's dynamic neural retraining system, and I was like, what is this? But it was basically retraining my brain to not look for danger, but to look for joy and health. My brain was so stuck in the danger loop, just scanning my environment, my surroundings, just to try to not get sick, but that's all I was focusing on, and so I would just keep getting sick, and so I would just keep getting sick, and so I had to retrain myself. I had to expose myself to different things again and then think different thoughts. And so I was retraining my brain to create different loops, not sick loops anymore, but health loops, and that was the first thing that changed.

Niki Sterner:

Almost three years ago, I had just graduated from a two-year Meisner Conservatory program, ready to get on stage, on screen and make my dreams come true. But as I started working on different movie sets, I noticed myself getting sick from chemicals that were off-gassing all around me. The breast implants and mold exposure that caused my brain injury were long gone, but five years later my brain was still stuck in limbic system impairment. I was getting sicker quicker with each new exposure. I felt helpless, like I'd wasted all this time, energy and money pursuing a career I might never be able to do. One day my acting teacher asked if I'd prayed for a miracle, so I did. That's when the DNRS program showed up, and it changed everything. Dnrs helped me rewire my brain, shifting from fight or flight and constant danger alerts to creative flow and joy. If you feel stuck in anxiety, overwhelm or chronic symptoms, this might be your breakthrough. Click the link in the caption to learn more. This could be your miracle too.

Niki Sterner:

And then the second thing that changed was that I got clear on what I actually wanted, because I was studying acting, but I didn't know why.

Niki Sterner:

Like I knew that I wanted to do this and I felt called to it.

Niki Sterner:

But I was like, what am I actually wanting to say or do with this? And so I had to look back and see like why am I doing this? And I wrote down lists like a star list, like back in the day when I was younger. Who did I want to be like Like Paula Abdul and Julia Roberts, and why did I want to have a voice? And I realized it was because I didn't have a voice for so long. I felt like I was in this people-pleasing thing where I didn't know myself for a really long time. And so figuring out who am I, what do I want, what do I value most and why do I want to speak was really how I gained an honest clarity with myself. And so I did a couple of programs, like Jodi Bentley had the Actors Think Tank and that had this thing where you wrote out your 20-year vision and then you reverse engineered it and I got clear on okay, if I want to be a TV showrunner. Then, looking at Quinta Brunson, what did she do in her past?

Niki Sterner:

So she wrote for comedy shows and put out videos and created her own kind of shows. And then I just reverse engineered what would it take to do that? And then I started scheduling classes and getting myself on a microphone doing things like trivia and writing comedy really helped to clarify what I wanted to say and my point of view. And I don't really consider myself a writer, but I think just doing it over and over again you become one. So it's like throwing away my past, what I thought I was, and becoming the future version of myself now was a big shift for me.

Micah Caldwell:

Right, and it was that one moment, that one conversation you had with your acting coach that made that possible.

Niki Sterner:

Yes, yes, exactly, because that was the moment that she made me realize that I am actually creating my life. I can create what I want, instead of just be a victim. I was in this victim mindset of life just happens to me and I just deal with what comes to me, you know, and that's such a powerless feeling and also I felt like I had a lot more resentment as a victim, blaming other people for your life, and it just felt so helpless and I think that's why, a lot of the time, I felt depressed. I didn't know I had this power in me to create my life.

Micah Caldwell:

So how long ago was that conversation with the acting coach?

Niki Sterner:

That was two and a half years ago. I had just graduated the two-year program and I was so excited. I was like I am ready, I'm going to go hit the ground running, I'm going to get more acting jobs, I'm going to do this. And then I just got sick and it was like what am I going to do if I can't do what I want to do?

Niki Sterner:

Have you ever had that happen, micah, where you felt like you knew what you wanted to do, but yet something was stopping you. I created the Confidence Kickstart morning routine because I know what it's like to have big dreams and still feel stuck behind self-doubt, fear or the pressure to get it right. As an actor, comedian and award-winning filmmaker, I've been on over 50 stages, but confidence didn't come first. Action and habits did. This free guide gives you the exact 15-minute routine I use every morning, with journal prompts, a guided audio meditation and a simple, step-by-step process built on the three pillars of the confidence shortcut mindset, path and action. These aren't just feel-good ideas. They're habits that work, that build confidence, that move you forward. If you're ready to stop overthinking and start showing up the link is in the caption Go grab it and start your day with clarity, courage and real momentum.

Micah Caldwell:

Yes, I think a lot of creatives have experienced that where, somewhere along the way, if it's not themselves, there's an outside or external source of discouragement in their journey and in their talent and in their craft. Unfortunately for me, I let that prevail. That was my narrative for over 40 years, which was you can't do that. In fact, I lost touch with my dreams because that had become such a prevalent part that had taken over completely, this idea that you can't be, that you can't be a performer, you can't be a singer, you can't be famous, you can't be. Not that I want to be famous, but when you're five years old, your dreams are often very lofty and you know relatively quickly. After that, I was told or learned or perceived that that wasn't possible for me, so I followed a completely different path. Oh my gosh.

Niki Sterner:

And that's what took you into being a lawyer.

Micah Caldwell:

Yes, yeah, I don't think I would have gone to law school if it wasn't something that my parents had encouraged.

Niki Sterner:

I'm sure they encouraged you because they thought this is a successful path for you and obviously you did very well as a lawyer. But something inside of you was saying there's more.

Micah Caldwell:

Yes, but I was shutting that voice out completely, like I had completely drowned it out, until it became inevitable, until it got to a point where what I was doing just wasn't working anymore. But, man, I kept up the good fight for a long time, 20 years.

Niki Sterner:

Yeah, yeah 20 years Wow.

Micah Caldwell:

That's wild Anyway this is not about me, this is about you. We can get to that in my episode. Yes, I'm excited too.

Niki Sterner:

Thanks so much for listening to the Confident Shortcut. I hope today's episode woke something up in you, reminding you that your dream matters and you can start now. If this sparked something, share it with a friend who needs it too. And don't forget to follow me on Instagram @ Niki Sterner and join our Facebook community at The Confidence Shortcut. Ready to take the next step? Check out my free guide, the Confidence Kickstart, linked in the show notes. Keep showing up, keep taking action and remember the shortcut to confidence is courage.