Nicole Kidman Hails This Attribute as Her ‘Superpower’ in Converting Rejections into an Oscar-Winning Journey.
Nicole Kidman, a highly acclaimed actor with five Oscar nominations and one win, has spoken about the challenges she faced in her career due to her height. In an interview with the Radio Times Podcast, Kidman revealed that she stands at 5 feet 11 inches tall, although she often rounded it down to 5 feet 10 ½ inches. Being taller than many of her classmates during her school days, Kidman mentioned that she faced teasing and was given the nickname ‘Storky.’ People would often make comments like “How’s the air up there?” due to her height. Despite these challenges, Kidman’s resilience and talent have propelled her to the top of her profession, where she has achieved great success as an actor.
When it came to pursuing an acting career, Kidman received discouraging advice from some individuals. She recounted, “I was advised, ‘Don’t even bother, you won’t have a career, you’re too tall.'” She shared an incident from her past when she auditioned for the role of “Annie.” Kidman had to persuade the casting team to let her in because they were measuring the height of the auditionees, and she exceeded the required limit. This experience left her feeling embarrassed and self-conscious.
However, despite not securing the role of “Annie,” it did not shake her determination. Kidman acknowledged that she faced a significant amount of rejection throughout her journey.
In fact, Kidman revealed that she took the valuable lessons she learned from those rejections and passed them on to her children.
Kidman emphasized, “I convey to my daughters that ‘None of these external factors truly matter. What truly matters is how you allow others to either grant you opportunities or deny them, and whether you embrace or reject that.'” She continued by stressing the significance of inner resilience as a human being, regarding it as the ultimate superpower, surpassing all others.
Certainly, developing resilience can be a challenging endeavor, but there are practical steps one can take to nurture greater resilience.
Performance coach Steve Magness, in a previous conversation with CNBC Make It, suggested that a simple grammatical shift can enhance one’s resilience. When confronted with a demanding task or obstacle, it’s advisable to replace first-person pronouns (like “I” and “we”) with second- or third-person pronouns.
This entails a shift in thinking from statements like “I can endure this workout” to substituting them with “You can endure this workout.”
As Magness explained, “By establishing psychological distance, we expand our perspective on the situation.” This transformation allows us to adopt the role of a friend offering guidance, free from the constraints of our personal involvement in the matter.
