I shared back in January that I had the opportunity to go up to New York City to be a guest on The Nate Berkus Show. Well, the wait is finally over and the show aired (or airs, depending on where you live) today. Here’s the video in case you missed it…
I’ve been sitting on (not literally) all of my behind-the-scenes pictures and I am finally able to share them!
It really was a great experience. I was extremely nervous, but my word of the year is celebrate and I was determined that this trip and opportunity was going to be a celebration, not a bundle of nerves. I was not going to let self-doubt and fear and anxiety rob me of the joy. With my mind made up about those things, I had some butterflies, but I was able to thoroughly enjoy myself.
The morning of the taping, I woke up super early, so I had plenty of time to get ready and gather my thoughts. A car came and picked us up at the hotel, which certainly made us feel important!
We arrived at the studio and I noticed the line starting to form outside of the “Nate” awning. Of course, I had to take a picture.
And we went into the studio (and I had to take a picture)…
…and I had my name on a dressing room (and I also had to take a picture).
I had a few minutes to sit and then they whisked me away to hair and makeup. I think that is more about boosting your confidence than making sure you hair is smooth. The girls were so sweet and complimentary and it immediately made me relax. The hair and makeup were just an added bonus. I then went back to my dressing room and practiced the script with one of Nate’s staff. She started to rattle off what I needed to say and my head started to tingle and panic set in. It was an entire paragraph! How was I going to remember that? Would I have to read a teleprompter? I’ve never done that! This isn’t what I signed up for! Is it too late to back out? After rehearsing a bit more, she assured me that I didn’t have to memorize anything. Whew! OK. She just wanted to make sure I had an idea what I was going to say and was comfortable talking. After about three minutes she said, “OK. I think you’re going to do great. Obviously you’re a good talker.” That cracked me up. Yes, I’m a motor-mouth.
They then took me downstairs to the studio for a walk-through. My husband, being the great husband-of-a-blogger that he is, took lots of pictures of the rehearsal with his iPhone.
The swarm of people around my projector was almost comical.
It took quite a bit of adjusting and playing with the lighting for them to make it work, but they did and it showed up really well on camera. I then walked through the segment with a Nate stand-in. Darn-it. I should’ve written down names. I think her name was Celeste…? Well, she was awesome to work with and certainly deserves me remembering her name.
The art department worked with me to make sure I had all of the paints and brushes I needed. The entire production company worked like a machine.
I get super chatty when I’m nervous, so I just yapped away while Celeste (?) nodded. I was really scared of dead air and I had to keep reminding myself that Nate is a pro at TV and will make sure that doesn’t happen. I could relax.
After the rehearsal, I had some time in my dressing room. I prayed. I took deep breaths. I thought through the main points I wanted to say. I tried to focus on celebrating. Then it was time. They ushered me downstairs to get my microphone on. My scarf was in the way, so I had to pull it down and wear it funny, so it didn’t mess with the mic. All of the moisture was evaporating from my mouth. “Can I have some water?” They were right on it and even gave me a straw, so I wouldn’t mess up my lipstick. Deep breaths, Marian. Celebrate, Marian. One of Nate’s staff came over and informed me that Nate wasn’t going to ask me about the wall in my guest room. He was just going to ask about my business. AHH! We didn’t practice that! What should I say? What can I say? Can I plug my blog? I didn’t have much time to think of it before I was being led on stage.
Nate was already standing at the station where we were going to work on the sign. The crew was setting up my projector and my “House Proud” segment was starting to play. I shook Nate’s hand and he started chatting with me about my house. Should I talk to Nate or watch my segment or look at the camera? I chose to talk to Nate, but then one of the crew started counting down to when the camera would be on us. No time to talk, Nate. I need to take deep breaths. The camera went live and Nate asked about my business. I had really hoped I could engage the audience a bit more, but there was a wall of people and cameras between us and the audience. As someone with a theatre background, I am used to drawing energy from the crowd. For some reason, that would always give me more confidence. The wall of cameras and people was a little unsettling to me, so I took a different approach. I pretended that the audience was filled with all of my wonderful blog readers. I imagined you were all there, rooting for me to do well. I tried to ignore the cameras and everything else and just have a conversation with you. I was still a little nervous, but it did help. You can see my hand shaking when I’m writing with the chalk and painting, but that’s OK.
Once the segment was over, I shook Nate’s hand and my husband and I were able to leave to catch our train. That was it. The surreal short-lived guest-star-experience-on-a-TV-show was over and we had to haul our own luggage and catch a cab to get to Penn Station.
It was an amazing opportunity and a very fun experience. The trip to New York felt like such a defining time. It’s sort of hard to explain, but it was like a celebration of all of the work I had done up to that point. It was a time to get away from the day-to-day norms of my life and business and reflect about the past and dream about the future.
Check out my post His Ways are Higher to read more about my New York trip.
This taping also brought me five minutes of local fame. I ended up as the lead story in our paper…
It’s so funny. I’ve always had my blog life as Miss Mustard Seed and my real life as Marian and now the two worlds have collided. We had some kids from our youth group over to play x-box the day my article was in the paper. One of the youth boys asked another why I was in the newspaper and he replied, “I don’t know. Some decorating junk.” I guess my real life helps me keep my three minute appearance on national TV in proper perspective. Just where it should be.
