Barbara Niven
Actress, Motivational Speaker, Presentation Coach
Name: Barbara Lee Niven Birthplace: Portland, Oregon Birthday: February 26 (Pisces) Citizenship: Dual citizenship U.S.A./Canada Height: 5'5 Hair: Blonde Eyes: Blue
Barbara Niven is definitely living her dreams! She’s one of Hollywood’s
busiest actresses, and served on the National Board of Directors for the
Screen Actors Guild. She's also a popular speaker and recently joined
the speaking faculty of Brian Tracy's
iLearningGlobal.
She is living proof that anyone can make his or her dreams come true, at
any age. She says, "Every moment you have a choice, to move toward your
dream or away from it." Her motto? "Don’t settle for less than wonderful
in your life – and don’t give up five minutes before the miracle!"
Barbara has created the breakthrough
ACT as if! system to help you
put own your dreams into action. Using acting techniques, it helps you
put the Law of Attraction to work for you immediately, in both your
personal and professional life.
Many of us spend time and money on DVDs like The Secret, but hit the
wall in frustration when, after countless affirmations and
visualizations, our lives don’t change.
Thoughts become things is a catchy phrase, but how do you really
do that? There’s a missing link between imagining the life we want and
living it. You must get it out of your head and into your physical life!
That’s where ACT as If! comes in. It helps
you kick start your belief system so you can
act as if it's already
happening...until it is!"
She is proof that this works. She didn’t start an acting career until
she was almost thirty years old, putting her own dreams on hold while
she became a wife and mother in Portland, Oregon.
One day she received something in the mail from her upcoming high school
reunion that asked, "Have you achieved what you thought you would in
your life so far?" She says it hit her like a ton of bricks that she was
only living everybody else’s idea of who she should be. She decided she
didn’t want to wind up wondering what if at the end of her life, so
despite hearing that it was impossible, she talked her way into a news
internship at Portland‘s NBC affiliate and sold her first story to
network. Then she discovered her real passion, acting, and has been
making a living at it, against all odds, for over twenty years.
She’s proud her daughter is going after her own dreams now, which are
very different from hers. "That is the best gift I could have given her,
watching me fight for mine, so that she now has the courage to make her
own dreams and destiny come true. It’s not about money. It’s about
waking up every day and loving what you do!"
Barbara also speaks to corporations and campuses across the country
about her struggle and victory over an eating disorder, so that others
will speak up about their own secrets and get help. She’s appeared on
national television shows talking about the pressure to be thin in
Hollywood, and is profiled in a book called
"Feeding the Fame: Celebrities Tell Their Real-Life Stories of Eating
Disorders & Recovery".
In between film and speaking assignments, Barbara is in demand as an
acting and presentation coach. She teaches speaking techniques, audition
preparation and on-camera skills to a wide range of clients.
Barbara also takes time to pursue other aspects that enrich her life,
and lends her support to numerous charitable organizations. She loves to
say yes to adventure, and one of her favorite vacations was spending a
week at a ranch in Montana, learning to herd and cut cattle. She spends
a lot of time on animal rescue efforts, urging people to adopt, not buy.
She says, "Animals have no voice, so we must save them...one animal at a
time. There's nothing better than helping them find their miracle."
