Episode 15

Hello again. Thanks so much for tuning in to The Follow Through Formula Podcast. If you're back from listening to previous episodes, thank you for returning. And if you're just stumbling into this episode of The Follow Through Formula as your first listen, then to catch you up to speed: I've committed to recording one podcast a day for 21 days as an experiment in follow through; podcasting is completely new to me; I started from scratch on Episode 1, knowing virtually nothing about podcasting, and here I am on Episode 15 on my way to completing my commitment to do 21 in a row.

It's later in the day than I planned for getting to my podcast recording, and the reason it's later is because we got a spontaneous invitation from our next-door neighbors to come over and celebrate their granddaughter’s second birthday. It was too good an invitation to pass up. We went over and shared some barbecue and cake and saying Happy Birthday to their granddaughter. It was lovely, and after months and months of pretty serious isolation for me and my family, getting to go over in a safe and socially distanced manner and just hang out with a wonderful group of people for good conversation and generous human company was such a joy and such a delight.

It has been so long since I've been in any kind of gathering where socializing and casual conversation could take place. It was so feeding and so wonderful. Oh, man, we need each other as human beings. Now I've been doing a lot of zoom meetings and calls just like the rest of you, but it isn’t the same thing. It's so different when you get to sit in a group of people and a conversation can organically arise and people can laugh and joke and the nuances of having fun and making comments and following a conversation in a group can take place. It's a totally different thing, and, boy, did I ever enjoy that.

I actually had to excuse myself from the gathering early because it was getting late and I hadn't even started the podcast yet. My experience over there reminded me of another story. This story is about an event that happened at a hockey practice for my son. At this time my son and I were living in Arizona, having just moved from Canada. Of course, my son was really into hockey being Canadian. But there isn't a lot of ice in Arizona, so the way hockey takes place in Arizona is on outdoor concrete rinks on in-line skates. He was able to join up with a recreational hockey league, and the kids would get together from time to time just to scrimmage on their own on the outdoor rinks whenever they could.

There was a group of parents who would stay in touch with each other and confer on good times for the kids. The parents would all come down to the rink, drop their kids off, and most of them would leave while the kids scrimmaged. I never felt comfortable with that. Hockey is not the most benign off sports, so I liked to hang around on the fringe while they were swinging their big sticks in the process of play, to be there just in case.

At that point in time, I was actually working on my first business book, which is called Seven Rules You Were Born to Break, and I would sit in the car and just work on my writing. Now, I'm an introvert by nature. Even though I speak and present on stage for a living, I like quiet time and solitude to myself. I like my creative endeavors. I love to write. I was happy to be sitting in the car getting work done while my son was on the rink playing with the other kids.

There was one other parental figure who used to stick around for these hockey scrimmages, and that was the grandfather of one of my son's best friends. His name was Doyle, and I spoke to him on a number of occasions. I didn't know him really well, but I knew a little bit about his background. He had been raised in Oklahoma, and he was the epitome of a southern gentleman. He was a very large man, very gentle and he had a very doting, loving manner with his grandson. With all the kids, in fact. He liked to come and hang out and watch his grandkid play on the rink. I was always struck by the impact that this warm, generous elder had on the whole scene by his willingness to stay instead of going off to do something on his own.

He stayed and gave his attention to the kids. It strikes me now in talking about the subject of follow through, that he was probably following through on a context for relationship that he grew up with, having to do with the value of giving our presence to each other. He would either sit in the bleachers or sit in his old orange Ford pickup truck. I would mostly sit in my car and get work done.

Doyle was a gregarious, talkative man, and if I were to go over and approach him, he would soon be telling stories. He was engaging and open with his company. I wasn't always up for that, and he was a bit hard to understand—his Southern accent was thicker than cough syrup, and I had to work to make out what he was saying. Even so, he was a pleasure to be around.

On this particular day, as usual when we got to the rink, my son got out of the car, got his gear, and went out on the rink. They started scrimmaging while I was sitting in the car working. A few car lengths over to my right, Doyle was sitting in his truck. I noticed he was kind of staring out at the rink, watching the kids. As I was working away on my book and trying to stay focused on my writing, I kept having this feeling about Doyle's generous presence. I was aware of his generosity of spirit that showed in his willingness not to occupy himself with other things, to just watch the kids. I almost felt a little bit ashamed of my own habits of self-reference, a kind of selfishness or stinginess about use of my own time. 

It kept weighing on me as I worked. I felt that the presence he provided to the kids really deserved a reciprocal show of interest on the part of somebody else. I kept trying to ignore the feeling. I kept trying to go back to my work, but the feeling wouldn't leave me. I had a sense that I should go over and talk to him. Finally, I put my laptop away. I got out of the car and walked over to his truck. His windows were rolled up, and he was still sitting in the truck looking out at the rink.

I walked right up to his window, assuming he would notice me, but Doyle just kept staring straight ahead. He didn't notice me there, so after a few seconds I reached my hand up and rapped my knuckles lightly on the window. He didn't respond, which struck me as odd. I waited a second more and knocked again a little bit louder. This time he startled a little bit and looked over, did a kind of double take, and realized I was standing there. He looked at me through the window and seemed confused. It was an unusual response, not his usual sort of warm recognition. I motioned with my finger to indicate he should roll the window down so I could speak to him.

He cracked the window open just a little bit, which was kind of odd as well, that he wouldn't roll the window down all the way. I said, “Hey, Doyle, how you doing?” He started talking to me, and at first I thought that it was his usual thick Southern accent making it hard for me to understand. I was straining to catch his words. But as he spoke, I realized that the words that were coming out were actually jumbled and confused and slurred. I felt a jolt of concern. I wasn't sure what was going on, and I said, “Doyle, will you roll down the window the rest of the way?”

Now, his left arm was right next to the window crank, where he could have just rolled the window down the rest of the way. But he looked at his hand for a moment and then, with his right arm, he reached across his whole body to lower the window the rest of the way. It was in that moment that it dawned on me what was going on and that he was likely in the middle of having a stroke.

The non-functioning limb, the slurred speech, confusion in his face. I said, “Doyle, are you okay? Are you feeling all right?” His attempts to speak to me confirmed what I was afraid might be happening. I said, “Doyle, you know what? I'm going to call an ambulance.” And he was looking at me and he gave a very slight nod.

I had my phone in my hand. I called 911. The outdoor hockey rink was in a local sports complex facility, surrounded by soccer fields and baseball fields. Within a minute and a half there was an ambulance outside of his driver's side door because they had been parked outside of a soccer game. They pulled up, got him on a stretcher, got him into the ambulance, and took him to the hospital. He was in an emergency room within something like six minutes of having had this stroke.

If I had not gone over, if I had not followed through on the feeling I was having, based on his follow through to be consistently in relationship, he may have died. As it turned out, he got to the emergency room in time to minimize any serious brain damage. He remained functional and healthy for quite a few years after that. His daughter, who was the mom of my son's good friend, was incredibly grateful to me. Every time I saw her she would come up and give me a big hug and thank me for saving her father's life. I always explained to her that what saved Doyle's life was his own presence and his follow through in relationship to his grandson and the other kids. His way of being and his demonstration of the priority of relationship is what triggered me and modeled to me the importance of being connected, and had me responding to him, as it just so happened, in a moment that was crucial.

When I think about accomplishing goals, achieving results and outcomes, I often don't think of relationship as being a part of that. I don’t think of relationship as a form of follow through that has high merit. It is important for me to tell stories like this and to remember examples such as Doyle, people in my life who remind me that being human with each other, showing up for each other, and following through with our presence is as important as any other ingredient to follow through.

Doyle passed away some years ago now, but his memory is significant to me. Those who are examples of genuine kindness and generosity between human beings are so important. So today I tell Doyle’s story as a way of carrying forward his example and the impact that he had on other human beings in this world.

As you pursue whatever is your chosen form of follow through over these 21 days, I hope that your follow through includes other human beings and people the way Doyle included other people in his life. On that note, I'll sign off. Thanks again for listening. This has been Episode 15 of The Follow Through Formula Podcast, and be back with you tomorrow and speak with you then. Game on!