Today, I want to explore something I'm not very good at but wish I could excel in: singing. As I reflect on my high school theater experiences, I recount my journey from being too scared to audition for musicals to unexpectedly landing the lead role in "Grease." Despite my lack of vocal talent, my desire to sing well has stayed with me over the years. I’m considering taking singing lessons and wondering if it’s too late for me to improve. Join me as I navigate this personal challenge and share some humorous and heartfelt moments along the way.

I'm Matt Gilhooly, and this is the Life Shift Candid conversations about the pivotal moments that have changed lives forever. Hello, my friends. Welcome to day 16 of the Life Shift podcast. 30 days, 30 episodes, bonus series.

If this is your first time listening, there are 15 days that came before this. And basically what I am doing is showing up every day without really understanding what I'm going to talk about.

And these are usually about 10 minutes long. I don't know why. They just happen to end up being that long.

And I show up and I look at a prompt or a list and I just was googling like, what should I address today? Sometimes I have a little inkling of what I'm going to talk about, and sometimes it is completely off the cuff.

Share a little bit more than usually. I get to do so in the episodes with my guests who are so generous with their stories. I have 166 episodes recorded right now.

I think last week episode 156 just came out. So I am good for a few more months of recording. No plans on stopping, so this is just a little extra bonus challenge to myself.

I think it is stirring something up. I don't know how I'm going to use it or what I'm going to do, but here we are, day 16 of this little adventure.

So I was just looking at a list of questions that someone on Reddit put together. There's like 500 questions on here. And I was just scanning and I'm thinking, okay, what am I gonna do today? It's Saturday, Went to the gym.

I already watched Dateline NBC, did some chores around the house, set up some new fans. You know, I like to kind of take it easy as much as possible on Saturdays, but I wanted to do this episode now.

So while the Roomba is going around and doing the cleaning and hopefully in other rooms, I will share what is something you're terrible at but wish you could do well. So the immediate thing that I think about is singing. I wish I could just sing like on pitch, on key, on all those things.

When I was, let's see, in high school, I wanted. I was doing theater with everyone and part of the theater program.

Like you obviously do musicals and you do plays, but the big thing every year was always the musical and to be a part of that you kind of have to, like, audition and sing, which was so frightening to me. So the first year that I did the musical at my high school, we did the Wiz and I was not brave enough to audition.

And so I did props with my friend Jackie, and she and I made, like, the shoes that. That Dorothy would wear. And we got to push out my friend Randy, as he was the Wiz, and we pushed him out on his throne and all this fun stuff.

It was all behind the scenes and that was really fun. But then the next year, we were doing Grease and I was like, wow, that would be fun. It was a fun movie to watch growing up.

I've already told you that I ended up being Danny Zuko. That doesn't mean I can sing, because I can't.

So I wanted to audition so that I could just be a part of it because there are so many people involved in this musical. And so I auditioned and we had to, like. I guess the guys had like a choice of a couple songs and we had to sing them.

And I was hoping that I would be like boy number three or tree number four or whatever it was that I could hide in the back. Well, then it happened to be so that the cast list came out and my name happened to be on the top as Danny Zuko, which was nerve wracking.

So apparently in the audition, maybe they thought, okay, he can pull this off. So we did all the rehearsals and everything, and I got through it and ended up doing most of the show.

We ended up running out of time towards the end of rehearsal.

And so in the play, there's like, instead of you're the one that I want because that was made for the movie, there's a different song, and we never even got to that. So it just like kind of jumps to the end of we go together. But I did most of the songs. I had a couple solos.

It's not that Sandy song that John Travolta sang in the movie. It's Alone at the Drive in movie, which has this weird ending. And I was just so nervous.

And this, like, mind you, this is the first time that, like, my dad and my grandmother ever heard me sing in this way on a stage with microphones and stuff. So I did that. I did a couple other things where I had to sing. But honestly, I'm not good, but I want to be good.

So much so that the last couple months I've been thinking about it more and I'm like, am I too old to, like, find singing lessons? Is that a thing Is that weird? I don't know.

I still haven't determined if I want to pursue that more, but I would just love to be able to, like, know how to use my voice outside of this podcast, but in. In a way where I could, like, carry a tune and sound good. I don't know where I would use it or what I would use it for. I mean, I have this mic.

Maybe I just record an album or something. But really, that's, like, one thing that I feel like I'm not good at, but I love to do.

Especially, like, I think a lot of people can relate to loving singing in their car or in the shower or just around the house when music is playing, whatever it may be.

So I love doing that, but I want to be able to do it in which, if someone else heard me, it wouldn't be like, I instantly shut down and, like, not sing out loud. So that's the thing that I am terrible at, but I wish I could do well.

I'm sure there's other things that I could probably think about, but that's the one that came top of mind, and it doesn't mean that I'm not going to pursue it. Over the pandemic, I was actually kind of, like, bored.

And then over the pandemic time, I had a lot of time on my hands. And so then I started really practicing every day.

I did this thing where people would send me pictures of their pets, and then I would draw, like, a cartoon around them, and then their dog or cat or whatever would be in this cartoon, and then I would send it to people and they could pay what they wanted if they wanted to donate to anything. And I did. I ended up doing, like. Like a thousand of them or something crazy like that.

So much so that I tried to do a fundraiser where I raised about, like, $800 to donate to my friend Mickey's dog sitting place that she had during the pandemic that unfortunately had to shut down during the pandemic. But we tried to keep the lights on through that. But I'm saying all this because, like, I didn't know how to draw before I started that.

And then I just kept doing it and doing it and doing it. So maybe, maybe there's an opportunity here if you want to see some of that art, you can go on Amazon. There's a kids book under Matt Gilhooly.

There is. Or there are 13 coloring books that you can purchase and then color in and trace on the back of the pages, whatever you want to do.

But a lot of those are based on those pet drawings that I did. So there's like dogs in space, dogs in cars, cats everywhere. Then there's a couple other like creature kind of cartoon looking coloring books.

So I think I can do it. Maybe I'll keep looking. Maybe if, you know, am I too old to learn how to sing, let me know. Anyway, that is day 16.

This list seems pretty, pretty great to kind of scan and look at, so maybe I'll find something even more interesting tomorrow. Thank you for being a part of the 30 day, 30 episode series on the Life Shift podcast and have a great Saturday.

For more information, please visit www.thelifeshiftpodcast.com.