# 36 - How to Trade Your Hero Mask for Authenticity

Episode 36

[00:00:00] : Hey there, everybody. This is Rick Lewis with Episode 36 of the follow through Formula Podcast, and I got a bunch of stuff going on today. It's been a really kind of jumbled day that's made me. It's been a roller coaster. So I woke up this morning with this awesome idea for an episode that I felt really connected to an idea I wanted to communicate about. And I already knew the title of the episode. The title was going to be Experimentation is a human obligation, and I spoke in this spontaneous stream of all. It was a 45 minute many sermon that felt as it was coming out like, Oh, this is brilliant And I'm so eso excited that I've captured this to share with everybody. And so I left it and then went to try and just, you know, listen and do the edit and post production of it. Just a half hour ago, and as I started listening to it, my my heart kind of sank because what I was hearing is someone who was just holding forth from a place that just was missing the truth. Okay, what it was missing was a sense of self reflection, I guess. And sometimes when I get on a roll like that, things come out really well. And and this one just was missing this component somehow off ah, sense of authenticity for myself and listening to myself. So here I am. It's later in the afternoon. I usually try and do the podcast early in the morning. I get it done, make sure I've got something good going. I've made a commitment to my family to be done at five o'clock, which has been a challenge for me the last month or so since I started doing the podcast to not have this new, um, campaign this new project bleed into the whole day. And but so my aim has been to get this complete, and here it is. It's 4. 34. 30 in the afternoon, listening to what I recorded this morning going, I can't I can't put this out because it's not what I want to convey. It doesn't have the, uh the rial ness that I'm committed to for this podcast. I have. I've mentioned before that I have a spiritually teacher. His name is Leela Zwick, and he himself had a spiritually master named Yogi Rum. Surat Kumar, an Indian saint who died maybe 20 years ago. And when my teacher would go visit his master in India at his master's Ashram, Yogi Room, Surat Kamar would say to him, Li se something useful because there would usually be a crowd there. People were gathered to spend time with the ST each day. He had a time where he would come and sit and be with people, and he would have my teacher speak to the crowd. And he would always say, Lee, say something useful. And the one trip that I went on with my teacher to India and watch these exchanges of my teachers master saying say something useful and then him unfailingly delivering something useful. And the reason that what he said was always useful is because he was always him self. It's the one thing I could say about my teacher, which perhaps has had the most impact on me is that he was always himself. I saw him in many different situations with a lot of different people, and he was never expressing himself or showing up in a way that seemed like he was putting on a different face to be seen in a different way or in a different light by whoever he was in front of. Didn't matter how important or well known the other person waas or how, by society's standards fringe the person WAAS or, um, inconsequential in terms of how we usually, uh, rank people in our in our culture, he was just always the same. And so whatever he would say was useful because what you were looking at is a riel human being, a really person being transparent about their process off, becoming mawr, human every day, growing into their humanness, which is what I saw my teacher practice and I'm so grateful for that reference point to see what that looks like. And if there's anything that I could pass along to others, it would be the encouragement toe. Want to be an example of someone who could be themselves with others because I can't think of anything we need more than that, the ability to be self honest and self observing and at the same time all of that being authentic and transparent and self honesty and self observing is very different from being self denigrating or having a low sense of self or a low sense of self esteem. So I thought of him today. I thought of my teacher who died 10 years ago, and he's a beacon for me, like we all should have examples in our lives people, other human beings, whether it's a spiritual teacher or, um, you know, one of our parents who have inspired us, or another mentor or business leader that has guided us and been an example for us, a coach, Um, whoever it is for you, that is that kind of example of someone who can really hold their seat with being authentically themselves wherever they go. That's That's a hugely valuable thing. And when we find that that person is worth remembering and referencing on our own path, because that's so needed right now. So here I am not using the long diatribe session I recorded this morning and instead just speaking about authenticity and the need for authenticity, and that really is the heart of follow through. And I've been talking about that from many different angles throughout this Siri's so far that to follow through on you is the goal of everything I've been considering and it's the goal of the follow through formula is to assist people to be able to follow through on who they really are and experience the personal joy that comes from that as well as the surprising and amazing benefits that other people receive when we're just ourselves and I don't know about you. But I've had this idea for a long time that if I'm really going to provide benefit to other people and be, ah, contribution, I'd better come up with something other than this that just who I actually am. I'll have to beam or smart orm or talented or more funny, orm or Wise or Mawr something because it couldn't possibly be that me just being me would be the most useful thing I could provide toe other people. That's crazy. But guess what? That's what happens, apparently, and I just discovered somebody showed me a reference on a website called Listen notes. It's listen notes dot com, and it's like it's a big search engine like Google. But the Onley thing it searches on and deals with is podcasts. It's a search engine dedicated to podcasts, So if you're looking for an interesting podcast. You could go there and research and type in keywords and find ah, podcast that you like. But not only does it help you find one you like, they have this process off going out and tracking what's happening with podcasts so they can rank them according to some quality control algorithms. So it's like, you know, how popular are the episodes? Meaning how how are people consuming them? Are they listening the full way through? And how many episodes are there? I mean, I don't know what all the measurement points are, but anyway, they recommend podcast based on their quality. So I went and had a look at this site, and my podcast is listed on there. I didn't put it on there. I guess they just find podcasts somehow. And I found out there are 1.7 million podcasts in the world. Mhm 1.7 something million podcasts that blew my mind. But the other thing that blew my mind is the follow through. Formula. Podcast is in the top 10%. It's ranked in the top 10% of all podcasts. Now you may be thinking 1.7 million podcast. That means there's 169 1000 podcasts that are better than yours. Dude, you would be right to say that. But for me, I take it as confirmation that this early in the game, after a month of starting my my podcast, that authenticity means something that people are listening enough or repeatedly enough. At least I'm not driving them away. And that authenticity works. So here's the other interesting twist on the original title topic I started with this morning. This inspiration of experimentation is a human obligation that we have a duty as a human being to experiment, and I still believe that that hasn't changed since this morning. But what has changed is what happened because after realizing and listening to this last edit that it just lacked the openness that I'm committed to delivering. This is the idea that came next. And it was an idea that I really didn't like and that I still don't like. The idea was, Well, you should live stream the podcast, do a Facebook or an Instagram live. I can't believe I'm telling you this. I don't even want to tell you this. But anyway, you should do a Facebook live or on Instagram live, and then just take the recording the audio and make it your podcast because that's what some people do. This was one of the suggestions I saw on this Listen notes site. It was giving suggestions to podcasters, which I am one now, um, it was giving suggestions of different ways to record in one way they said you could do it is do a Facebook live and then stripped the audio and use that as your podcast. And the moment I saw that, I was like, Oh, I just I just skated over it because I hate the idea of that. I don't know why, but I don't want to. I don't want to do alive. I know tons of people do them. I know it's a It's a big thing. It probably would be really helpful in bringing more attention to the podcast, but I don't want to do that. I mean, I really don't want to do that. So I had the idea, and then I was wrestling with it, going well, look, you just talked this morning. You did a big sermon this morning about how experimentation is a moral obligate. No, wasn't moral obligation. Experimentation is an obligation of being human. So you have to do the live because that would be an experiment for you. You've never done that before. So then I was stuck. I'm like, Ah, I really should. Uh huh. If I were walking my talk, I would go do alive right now. But I don't want to. I didn't want to. I don't want to now, So I'm actually failing at the moment to walk my talk. And instead of doing the live, I'm recording this podcast in the way in the manner that has become very comfortable to me. Now it's not so hard to do this daily podcast thing because I'm pre recording it. If it's really flubbed up and I don't like it, I don't have to upload it. So the reason I'm telling you all this is because my commitment and this is a little hack for you. My commitment is to take a step. And this is what I believe is the key to the follow through formula and two following through on you. All you have to do is take one step in the direction of what scares you. You don't have to go whole hog. You don't have to do the whole thing. You don't have to be some kind of hero who conquers every single fear you have in a single bound. We don't have to be that person. I'm not that person. You don't have to be that person. All we have to do is take at least a step. So my step. What I'm determining I can handle right now as I consider this idea of doing a Facebook live or on Instagram Live, and I'm saying those words, But I'm telling you, I don't even have any idea what's involved with that. And I'm sharing it because if you have an idea what's involved with that, if you have good instructions or you've done it before yourself, send me an email say, Hey, it's not so bad. I did it. Here's how you do it. I don't even know if you do. You have to do it from your phone, or can you do it from a computer? I don't know. I I mean, I literally don't know any of it. So if you've got any tips, if you just wanna give me some encouragement? Say, Hey, you know, get out there. It'll be all right or I'll show up when you do it. Just let me know when you're going live or you've got a good tutorial of someone who knows how to do it. Just send it to Mai. Send it to my email. Actually, just go to, um, go to games for confidence dot com and go to the contact form. So games for confidence dot com go to the contact form and just send me an email saying, Here's how you do it or just go, Rick, you could do it or anything like that would be helpful. So that's my step. That's how I'm beginning my experiment. Granted, it's a baby step. It's just a little step in a direction. I really I know I need to go. If I'm committed to this and I'm just taking a small step and I'm asking for your help if you have any to give, then let me know. And that's it for today. So, um, anything else that I need to tell you about? I don't think so. This is now. Wait, what episode? And my on 36. So this is Episode 36 off the follow through formula Podcast. I'm doing this each and every day. The day of the podcast is the day I record. So you're getting the real me Each and every day. This is Day 36. My name's Rick Lewis, and I'll be back tomorrow.